
Book_JMi__ 



i-/d / 



PSYCHOLOGY; 

OB, 



THE SOIEIfOE OF MIND 



BT 

EEV. OLIVER S. MUN-SELL, D. D., 

PRESIDENT OP ILLINOIS WESLETAN T7NIYEKSITT. 



^0, 



E'EW YOEK: 
D. APPLETO:^r AND COMPAITY, 

5 4 9 & r. 5 1 BROADWAY. 

1871. 



<^'^\'^^ 
^^^\^\% 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 
In the Oflace of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Section I. — Nattjke and Design of the "Work. page. 

T[ I. Nature of Science in general . . . . . .1 

II. Metliods of Science ....... 1 

III. Application of the Metliods of Science to the Study of the Phenom- 
ena of Mind . . . . . . . .2 

Sec. II. — Definition of Mind. 
1 I. Negatively, by Isolation ; contradistinguishing it from : 

1. Matter and its Phenomena ..... 2 

2. From Force as contradistinguished from Matter . . .3 

3. From Spirit as conceived apart from Physical Organization . 3 
II. Positively, by Determination ; 

1. Of the Conditions under which alone we actually detect its Pres- 

ence ........ 3 

2. Of its Attributes ; viz, (a) Thought, (S) Feeling, (c) Volition 3 
III. Supplementary Problem. — Is Physical Organization a Necessary or an 

Accidental Attribute of Mind ?..... 3 

1. Are the Developments of Mind and Body always proporti<mal to 

each other ? . . . . . . .3 

2. Are they capable of Independent Action ? . . . 3 

Sec. III. — Nattjee and Limitations or the Science of Mind. 
l" I. It is the Science of Organized or Embodied Mind, and not of Pure 

Spirit ..... ^ ... 4 

II. It is the Science of Phenomena and not of Noumena, of the Attributes 

and not of the Essence of Mind ..... 4 

Sec. IV. — Methods of Investigation. 

T[ I. Methods of the Cerebral Physiologists and Phrenologists . . 4 

II. Method of the Transcendental Metaphysicians ... 6 
III. Method of Modern Psychologists ; viz. : 

1. — Analysis of the Facts of Personal Consciousness . . . 6 

2.— External Observation ...... 7 



vi GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

Sec. V. — General Akalysis and Classimcation. 
1" I. Evolution of the Phenomena of Thought originating the Concept of 

the Intellect . . . . . . . 7 

II. Evolution of the Phenomena of Feeling, originating the Concept of 

the Sensibihties . . . . . . .8 

ni. Evolution of the Phenomena of Volition, originating the Concept of 

the Will 8 

IV. Eelations and Coordination of the three Departments of Mind . 8 



BOOK I. -THE INTELLECT 

PBELIMINABY BISCVSSION. 
CHAPTER I.— CONSCIOUSNESS : ITS NATURE AND LIMITATIONS. 
Section I. — Nature of Consciousness. 
Tl" I. Definition of Consciousness : 

1. Negatively, it is not a Speftial Faculty . . . .9 

2. Positively, it is simply Mind in Action . . . 9 
II. Conditions of Consciousness : 

1. A Healthy Organism . . . . . , .10 

2. Suitable External Conditions ..... 11 

3. Attention . . , . . . . .11 

Sec. II.— Limitations of Consciottsness. 

1[ I. In Time it is limited to the Now ..... 12 

II. In Space it is limited to the Here . . . . .12 

III. In Fact it is limited to the Actual . . . . .12 

IV. In Essence it is limited to the Phenomenal . . . .13 

Sec. III. — ^Validity of Consciousness. 

Tf I. Its Testimony cannot be verified . - . . . .14 

II. Its Testimony cannot rationally be challenged . . . .14 

III. Faith in Consciousness necessary and rational ... 14 

CHAPTER n.— CONSCIOUSNESS : ITS PRODUCTS. 

Preliminary Analysis. 

Evolution of the Products of Consciousness. 

T[ I. Evolution of the Percept . . . . . .15 

II. Evolution of the Concept . . . . . . .15 

in. Evolution of the Belief 16 

Section L— Percepts : their Nature, Conditions, and Limitations. 

T[ I. Their Nature : Cognition or Knowledge . . . . .16 

II. Their Conditions : Sensation and Intuition .... 17 

III. Their Limitations : To the Actual, known Now and Here . . 18 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. yii 

PACE 

Sec. II. — Concepts: their Natitee, Conditions, and Luiitations. 

IT I. Their Nature : the Eepresentation of the Ideal ... 19 

II. Their Conditions : Memory, Imagination, and the Synthetic Judgment 20 

ni. Their Limitations : the Canon of Non-contradiction . . 21 

Sec. m. — ^Beliefs: theib IsTATtntE, Conditions, and LnniATioNS. 

T[ I. Their Nature: the Determination of the True . . . .21 

n. Their Conditions : the Synthetic and Analytic Judgments . 22 

III. Their Limitations : the Canons of Thought . . . .22 

Sec. IV. — COOEDINATION OF THE PRODUCTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. — MODES OF 

Knowledge. 
TT I. Intuitive, Necessary, Presentative, Immediate. God knows absolute- 
ly, Man only in part ...... 23 

II. Conceptual or Ideal. Man conceives the Possible^ that he may discover 

the True . . . . . . . .24 

til. Probable: the True, the Eeal, Mediate Knowledge. Man reasons, 

God does not ....... 24 

CHAPTER ni.-CONSCIOXJSNESS : ITS PROCESSES. 
Preliminary Discvssion. 
Okigin of Thought. 
1 1. The Actual Processes of the First Evolution of Thought are hidden 

by the Veil of Infancy . . . . . .25 

II. The Potential Processes discoverable by an Analysis of the Elements 
of Thought, and of their several Eelations to the Thinking Subject 
and to the External "World . . . . .25 

Section I. — Evolution of the Materials of Thought. — Content of the 

Percept. 
T[ I. Special Conditions of the Problem . . . . .^26 

II. Analysis of a Typical Percept. Giving — 

1. Actually^ the Dual Percepts of Self and Not-self— of Man and 

the Universe : tJie Category of Being ... 26 



{a) The Percepts of Space (Extension), of Time (Pretension), 

and of Cause (Intension) : tJie Category of Limitation . 27 
(b) The Percepts of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good : the 

Category of Belation ..... 27 

3. Inferentially but immediately by the Coordination of these Cate- 
gories : the Concepts of the Finite, the Infinite, and their Ee- 
lations ; or Man, Nature, and God, as the integers of Thought 28 
III. Discrimination of the Subjective from the Objective Elements in the 
Typical Percept. Giving — 

1. Sensation ........ 28 

2. Intuition as the Conditions precedent of Perception, and the Origin 

of all the Materials of Thought . . . . .29 



Viii GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

FAQE 

Sec. II. — Eepresentation of the !Matebial3 of Thought. 

T[ I. Eetention and Eeproduction : tlie Functions of Memory . . 30 

II. Eepresentation Proper : the Functions of Imagination . . 31 

III. Classification : the Functions of the Synthetic Judgment . . 31 

Sec. III. — Elaboration of the Materials of Thought. 
TI I. The Inductive Process . . .... 32 

II. The Deductive Process . . . . . . .32 

Sec. IV. — Summary of Eesults. 
Our Intellectual Processes may he grouped as follows ; viz. : 
I. Perception, hased upon — 

1. Sensation ....... 33 

2. Intuition ........ 33 

II. Conception, hased upon — 

1. Memory ....... 33 

2. Imagination . . . . . . .33 

3. The Synthetic Judgment ..... 33 
III. Belief, based upon — 

1. The Inductive . . . . . . .33 

2. The Deductive Processes ..... 33 



THE INTELLECT.— ITS FIEST MOYEMEN'T. 
PEECEPTION. 

Preliminary Analysis. 

Perception considered under \hree general heads ; viz. : 

I. Sensation . . . . . . . .34 

II. Intuition ........ 34 

III. Cognition, or Synthesis of the Elements of Perception . . 34 

PERCEPnON : ITS FIEST ELEMENT. 

SEIfSATIOIf. 

CHAPTER I.— ITS NATURE AND CONDITIONS. 

Preliminary Pemarks. 

Section I. — Conditions of Sensation. 

T[ I. Its First Condition : a Sentient Soul ..... 35 

II. Its Second Condition : a Sentient Organism . . . .35 

III. Its Third Condition : an External Excitant or Object . . 36 

Sec. II.— Nature of Sensation. 

TT I. Sensation is a Primitive Fact of Consciousness . . .36 

II. Sensation is a Psychical and not a Physiological Process . . 37 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. ix 

PAOB! 

CHAPTER n.— THE FORMS OR MODES OP SENSATION. 

Preliminary Analysis. 

*ir I. Evolution of tlie General Senses, viz. : 

1. Muscular Sensations ...... 38 

2. Organic Sensations . . . . . • .38 
II. Evolution of the Special Senses ; viz : 

1. The Smell 38 

2. The Taste . . . . . * . .38 

3. The Hearing .38 

4. The Sight . . . • 38 

5. The Touch 38 

Section I. — The General Senses : Muscular Sensations. 

T[ I. Their Nature and Conditions . . . . . .38 

II. Their Kelations and Final Cause : 

1. They indicate Muscular Locality .... 39 

2. They indicate Muscular States . ... . .39 

Sec. II. — The General Senses : Organic Sensations. 

^ I. Their Nature and Conditions ...... 39 

II. Their Final Cause and Eelations . . . . . .40 

Sec in. — The Special Senses: the Smell. 

T[ I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions .... 40 

II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products . . . .40 

III. Its Eelations to Externality ...... 41 

Sec IV. — The Special Senses: the Taste. 

Tf I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions . . . .41 

II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products .... 42 

III. Its Relations to Externality . . . . . .42 

Sec, V. — The Special Senses: the Hearing. 

1[ I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions .... 42 

II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products . . . .43 

III. Its Eelations to Externality ...... 44 

Sec VI. — The Special Senses: the Sight. 

H" I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions . . . .44 

II. Its PJiysiological and Psychical Products .... 45 

III. Its Eelations to Externality . . . . . .45 

Sec VII. — The Special Senses: the Touch. 

If I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions .... 46 

II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products . . . .46 

III. Its Relations to Externality ...... 47 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 



TAGB 



Sec. VIII.— Compabative Functions of the Senses. 

TT I. Taste and Smell relate to the Cliemical Properties of Bodies . 47 
II. Touch relates specially to the Mechanical and Spatial Eelations of 

Bodies 48 

III. Sight and Hearing are adapted to the Spatial Eelations of Bodies 48 

CHAPTER ni.— OBJECTS OP SENSE. * 

Preliminary Discussion. ■ 

Geneeal Analysis and Classification. 

I. Evolution of Concept of Eemote External Excitant . . .50 

II. Evolution of Concept of Proximate External Excitant . . 50 

III. Evolution of Concept of Sensorium as excited . . . ,50 

Section I. — Objective Excitants of Sensation. 

Tf I. Normal Excitants, or Objects ..... Si 

II. Abnormal Excitants, or Objects . . . . . .51 

Sec II. — Subjective Excitants of Sensation. 

T[ I. Normal Excitants ....... 52 

n. Abnormal Excitants . . . . . . .52 

Seo. III. — The Eeai, Object known in Sensation. 

1 1. The Eemote External Object, or Excitant, considered . . 52 

II. The Proximate External Object, or Excitant, considered . . 53 

III. The Sensorium itself, as excited, considered ... 54 

IV. Mind Active in Sensation ...... 56 

Sec IV. — Abe Sensations ever false and unheal? ... 56 

CHAPTER IV.— EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 

Section I. — ^Development of the Senses in Infancy . . .57 

II. — Education of the Special Senses ... 67 

III. — ^Limitation of the Sphere of Sensation . . .58 



PERCEPTION: ITS SECOND ELE]\[ENT 

INTUITION. 

CHAPTER I.— NATURE, VALIDITY, AND CLASSIFICATION OF INTUITIONS. 

Section I. — Nature of Intuition. 

1[ I. Discrimination of the Intuition from the Sensation in the Percept 58 

IT. Definition of Intuition . . . . . . .59 

ni. Potential and Actual Knowledge ..... 60 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xi 

FAGE 

Sec. II. — Validity of Intuition. 
f I. Modes of Truth : 

1. Subjective Truth , . . . . . .61 

2. Objective Truth 61 

II. The Criteria of Intuitive Truths : 

1. Universality , . . . . . . .63 

2. Necessity ........ 63 

Sec, III. — CLAssincATioN of Intuitions. 
'^ I. Intuitive Concepts ; viz. : 

\ 1. The Category of Being . . . . . .64= 

2. The Category of Limitation • . . . . .64 

. 3. The Category of Eelation . . . . .64 

II. Intuitive Truths or Primitive Judgments : 

1. The Laws of Thought or Canons of Logic ... 64 

2. The Axioms of Mathematics . . . . .64 

3. The Categorical Imperative of Conscience ... 64 

CHAPTER n.-INTUITIVE IDEAS, OR PRIMITIVE CONCEPTS. 
Section I. — The Category of Being. 
T[ I. Self, or the Personality ; including : 

1. Personal Existence . . . . . . .65 

2. Personal Identity : 

(a) Physical Identity ...... 66 

(6) Organic Identity . . . . . . , " 

(c) Spiritual Identity ...... 

II. Not-Self, or the Universe : 

1. Subjective and Objective Elements discriminated . 

2. Man's Physical Nature both subjective and objective . 

3. The Eeal Objective Element known in Sensation . 
III. Substance and Attribute : 

1. Spiritual Substance . . . . . .09 

2. Material Substance . . . . . . .69 

Sec. II.. — The Categoey of Limitation. 
T I. Space or Extension : 

1. It is not an Object of Sense ..... 70 

2. It is not an Abstraction from the Idea of Body . , .70 

3. It is not an Entity, but a Condition precedent of Being . 70 
II. Time or Protension. The Second Condition precedent of Being . 70 

III. Cause or Intension : 

1. Analysis of the Concept ...... 71 

2. Eeal Import of the Canon of Causation . . . .72 

3. Classification of Causes, viz. : 

(a) Efficient Causes ...... 73 

(J) Material Causes . . . . . . .73 

(c) Formal Causes ...... 73 

(d) Final Causes . . . , . . .73 



xii GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

FAOB 

Seo. III. — The Categoet of Eelation. 

I I. The True : 

1. Analysis of the Concept . . . . . .74 

2. Nature of Error and Falsehood : 

(a) A Statement may be both subjectively and objectively true 75 

(b) A Statement may be subjectively true and objectively false . 75 

(c) A Statement may be subjectively false and objectively true 75 
II. The Beautiful : 

1. Analysis of the Concept . . " . , . .75 

2. Characteristics of the Concept: 

(a) It is Universal . . . . . . . ^'6 

(b) It is Primitive . i . . . . .77 

3. Cognition of Beauty — Taste. This is proportional to : 

(a) The Natural Strength and Delicacy of the Intuitions . 78 

(b) The Completeness of its Culture . . . ' .78 
Supplemektaet. — The Sublime : 

1. Its Nature ........ 78 

2. Its Eelations to Beauty . . . . . .78 

m. The Eight, the Good ; 

1. Analysis of the Generic Concepts . . . . 79 

2. Nature and Origin of these Concepts : 

(a) Theory of Benevolent Utility — 

First. It confounds all Distinction between the Good and 

the Eight . . . . . .81 

Second. It resolves the Good and the Eight into Selfishness 81 

Third. It resolves Eight and "Wrong into Arbitrary Voli- 
tions of the Divine Being . . . .82 

Finally. It contradicts the Clearest Teachings of Eevelation 82 

(b) Theory of Eight as an Immutable Eelation . . .82 

.. TV. — CooEnrtTATioN and Coeeelatiok of the Categoeies of Being, 
Limitation, and Eelation. — ^Evolution of the Concept of God. 
Tf J. Evolution of the Correlative Concepts of the Finite and Infinite . 84 

II. Application of the Concepts of the Finite and Infinite to the Category 
of Being, necessitating the Affirmation of— 
"^ , The Finite Characters of Man and the Universe . . .85 

2. The Actual Existence of an Infinite, i. e., of God . . 86 

III. Application of the Category of Eelation to this Infinite Personality . 86 

Sec. V. — ^Eesultant Conceptions. 
^ I. Evolution of the Eelations of the Finite to the Finite, viz. : 

1. Of Nature to Nature, originating Science ... 87 

2. Of Nature to Man, originating Art, Industry . , .87 

3. Of Man to Man, originating Government ... 87 
II. Evolution of Eelations of Finite to the Infinite, viz. : 

1. Of Man and Nature to God, originating Metaphysics . . 87 

2. Of Man to God, originating Theology . . . .87 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xiii 

PAGB 

CHAPTER THIRD.— INTUITIVE AFFIRMATIONS, OR PRIMITIVE 
JUDGMENTS. 
Section I. — The Caitons of TnouaHT. 
T[ I. The Law of Identitj- .... 

II. The Law of Contradiction .... 

III. The Law of Excluded Middle 

IV. The Law of Eeason and Consequent 

Sec. II. — The Axioms of Mathematics. 
T[ I. Examination of their Essential Forms . 

II. Mathematics only a Special Form of Logic . 
Sec." III. — The Categobical Impeeative of Conscience 



PERCEPTION: SYNTHESIS OP ELEMENTS. 
COGNITION. 

CHAPTER I.-NATURE, CONDITIONS, AND LIMITATIONS OF COGNITIONS. 

Section L— Nature of Cognition. 
11. Definition of the Term ...... 92 

n. Nature of the Process . . . . . . .92 

Sec. II. — Conditions of Cognition. 
*[[ L Sensation ........ 93 

n. Intuition ......... 94 

Sec. III. — ^Limitations of Cognition. 
1 1. In the Material World : 

1. To the Here in Space . . . . . • . 94 

2. To the Now in Time .' . . . ... .94 

n. In the Spiritual World : 

1. To the Facts of Consciousness ..... 94 

2. To Primitive Concepts and Judgments . . . .94 

Sec. IV.— Validity of Cognition. 

T[ I, Faith is necessary and universal ..... 95 

n. Skepticism is irrational . . . . . . .95 

CHAPTER n.-RELATIONS OF COGNITION TO CONCEPTION AND BELIEF. 

Section I. — Eelations of Cognition to Conception. 
1 1. How they are discriminated logically .... 95 

II. How they are .discriminated chronologically . . . .95 

ni. How they are discriminated actually. — The Conceivable 7iX>t the 
Measure of either — 

1. The Actual, known in Perception, or 

2. The Knowable, but only of 

3. The Comprehensible ....,, 95 

B 



3dv GENERAL AJTALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

Sec. II. — Relations of Cognition to Belief. 

I I. How they are discriminated logically . . . . .97 
II. How they are discriminated chronologically ... 97 

THE INTELLEOT.— ITS SECOND MOVEMENT. 
CONCEPTION. 
Preliminary Discussion: 
IT I., Materials of Thought furnished in Perception . . . .97 

n. Evolution of these Materials in the Processes of Thought — ^by Mem- 
ory, Imagination, and the Synthetic Judgment . « 98 

Section I. — Conditions and Limitations of the Concept. 
^ I. Materials of the Concept . . . . . . .98 

II. Processes of Conception, viz. : 

1. The Imagination ....... 99 

2. The Synthetic Judgment . . . . . .99 

III. Resultant Forms of the Concept : 

1. Concepts of Material Objects.— The Comprehensible . . 99 

2. Concepts of Non-material Objects. — The Knowable . . 99 

Sec. II. — The Office of the Concept. 

TT I. To reduce our Percepts to Possession . . . . 99 

II. To mediate their Forms . . . . . . .99 

III. The Measure of the Comprehensible only . . . .100 

CONCEPTION : ITS IIRST ELEMENT. 

MEMOET. 

General Analysis. 
IT I. Memory defined . . . . . . . .100 

II. Analysis of an Act of Memory : 

1. Retention ........ 100 

2. Reproduction: 

(a) Involuntary, Remembrance ..... 101 

(J) Voluntary, Recollection . . . ^ .101 

Section t. — Retention. 
TF I. Nature of Retention . . . . . . .101 

II. Conditions of Retention — 

1. The Subjective Conditions, viz. : 

(a) Natural Inequality of Power ..... 102 
(5) The Influence of Attention ..... 102 

2. The Objective Conditions, viz. : 

(a) The Intrinsic Character of the Object of Memory . . 102 

(b) The Form of the Thing remembered . . . 103 
III. The Office of Retention 103 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xv 

PAGB 

Sec. II.— Eeproduction. 
TT I. Involuntary — Eemembrance : 

1. Nature of Kememlbrance ...... 104 

2. Conditions of Eemembrance. — The Laws of Association of 

ideas ; viz. : 

(a) Contiguity of Time and Place . . . . 104 

(b) Eesemblance or Contrast ...... 105 

(c) Cause and Effect 105 

II. Voluntary— Eecollection : 

1. Conditions of Eemembrance — 

(a) A present Conscious "Want of the Soul .... 106 
(i) A Consciousness of a Past Knowledge . . . 106 

(c) A Nisus or Effort to recall it . . . . .106 

2. Methods of Eecollection ...... 106 

Sec. III. — Power of Memory. 
IT I. Capacity of Memory ....... 107 

II. Varieties of Memory ....... 107 

III. Is any thing ever wholly forgotten ?..... 108 

Sec. IV. — Cultivation of Memory. 

IT I. Artificial Systems of Memory . . . . .109 

n. True Principles involved in the Culture of Memory . . . 109 

CONCEPTION : ITS SECOND ELEMENT. 

IMAGmATIom 

Section I. — Nature and Eelations of the Imagination. 

Tf I. Analysis of an Act of Imagination . . . . . 110 

II. Materials of the Imagination ...... 110 

III. Its Eelations to other Faculties ..... 110 

Sec. II. — Office of the Imagination. 
TT I. To mediate the Form of the Percept ; 

1. It involves the Formation of a Mental Picture or Eepresentation 

of all Sensible Objects known in Perception ... . Ill 

2. It involves the Formation of an Idea or Notion of all Supersensi- 

ble Objects and Eelations, known in Perception, but incapa- 
ble of Eepresentation in a Mental Picture . . .111 
II, To evolve from the World of the Actual, given in Perception, the 

"World of the Ideal, conceived in Thought . . . .112 

Sec. III.— Eelations of the Ideal to the Eeal. 

f I. Of the Idea to its Object ...... 112 

n. Of the Ideal to Science . . . . . . . 113 

in. Of the Ideal to Art ....... 114 

IV. Ofthe Ideal to Morals and Faith . . . . . 114 



Xvi GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

Sec. IV. — Is the Imagikation a Cbeative Faculty? 

If I. It can originate no New Materials of Thought . . . 115 

II. It can originate New Forms and Combinations of Thought . . 116 

Sec. V. — CuLTUBE or the Imagination. 
1" I. Value of the Imagination ....... 116 

II. Conditions of its Evolution and Perfection : 

1. Philosophic Adaptations of Methods . . . .117 

2. Perseverance in their Use . . ' . . . . 117 
III. Limits of its Capacity ...... 117 

CONCEPTION : ITS THIRD ELEMENT. 

THE SYNTHETIC JUDGMENT, 

Preliminary Discussion. 

SUITMAET OF EeSULTS AND ANALYSIS OF EeLATIONS. 

IT I. Incompleteness of the Ideal Concept ..... 118 
il. Numerical Variety and Complexity of our Percepts . . 118 

III. Influence of the Poverty of Language . . . ; . 118 

IV. Evolution of the Processes of the Synthetic Judgment . . 119 

Section I. — Absteaction. 
^ I. Analysis of the Process ....... 119 

II. Final Cause and Kelations of the Process .... 120 

Sec. II. — Genebalization. 
^ I. Analysis of the Process . . . . . . . 120 

II. Final Cause and Eelations of the Process . . . .121 

Sec. III. — Classification. 
Tf I. Analysis of the Process ....... 121 

II. General Principles of Classification : 

1. Our Knowledge necessarily hegins with the Concrete, the Indi- 

vidual . . . . . . . .123 

2. Our Earlier Classifications are necessarily crude and empirical 123 

3. The Number of Conceivable Species between the Summum Genus 

and Infima Species is practically infinite . . . 123 

CONCEPnON : SYNTHESIS OP ELEMENTS. 

THE CONCEPT. 
Section L — ^Its Natijbe and Eelations. 
TT I. Eelation of the Concept to the Percept : 

1. In Time, the Concept is posterior to the Percept . . 123 

2. In Extension, it is superior to it . . * . . ,123 

3. In Comprehension, it is inferior to it . . . . 123 

4. It is dependent upon it for Eepresentation in Imagination . 124 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xvii 

PAGE 

TT II. Equivocal Use of the Term Concept. Here used to denote : 

1. The Percept as simply reproduced in Memory . . 124 

2. As represented in Imagination . . . . .124 

3. As logically evolved under the Forms of the Synthetic Judg- 

ment ........ 124 

Sec. II.— Powees and Peopebties or the Concept. 
T[ I. Extension of the Concept. Doctrines of Division : 

1. Its Nature and Eelations . . . . . .124 

2. Its Eesultant Process. Division. Eules of Division . 125 
II. Intension of the Concept. Doctrine of Definition : 

1. Definition of Intension ...... 125 

2. General Laws of Definition ...... 126 

in. Denomination of the Concept ..... 126 

Sec. III. — Eeal Significance and Value or the Concept. 

TIL Theory of Eealism 127 

II. Theory of Nominalism . . . . . .127 

III. Theory of Conceptualism ....... 127 

IV. Eeal Import of the Controversy ..... 128 

THE INTELLECT.— ITS THIKD MOVEMENT. 
BELIEF. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

Geneeal Analysis and Classification. 

^ I. Summary of Eesults attained in Perception and Conception . . 128 

II. Evolution of the Processes of Eeason .... 129 

III. Analysis of the Eeasoning Process, involving : 

1. Analysis of the Complex "Whole into its Elements . . 129 

2. Comparison of Element with Element .... 129 

IV. Forms of the Eeasoning Process, viz. : 

1. The Judgment, or Proposition ..... 130 

2. The Syllogism, or Chain 130 

V. Its Eesultant Product, Belief . . . . . .130 

BELIEF. 

CHAPTER I.— JUDGMENTS, OR PROPOSITIONS. 

Section I. — Analysis of Judgments. 
fl. The Subject . ... . . . . .131 

II. The Predicate. Three Predicables. We may predicate of a Subject ; 

1. What it is ; i. e., its Essence or Identity . . . 132 

2. What it does; i. e., its Acts . . . . .132 

3. What Qualities it possesses ..... 132 

III. The Copula 132 



xviii GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 



Sec. II. — Peopekties of Judgments. 
1[I. Their Quantity : 

1. Universal . . . . . . . .133 

2. Particular . . . . . . . .133 

II. Their Quality : 

1. Afiarmative . . . . . . .133 

2. Negative . . . . . . . ...133 

III. Their Derivative Classification : 

1. Universal Affirmatives (A) ..... 133 

2. Universal Negatives (E) . . . . . .133 

3. Particular Affirmatives (I) . . . . .133 

4. Particular Negatives (0) 133 

IV. Modality of Judgments : 

1. Categorical Judgments ...... 134 

2. Hypothetical Judgments ...... 134 

Sec. III. — Opposition of Judgments. 
Tf I. Forms of Opposition, or Contrariety : 

1. Contrary Judgments . . . . . . 135 

2. Contradictory Judgments ...... 135 

3. Subcontrary Judgments ..... 135 

4. Subaltern Judgments ...... 135 

II. General Laws of Opposition, or Contrariety : 

1. The Law of Contraries . . . . . . 135 

2. The Law of Contradictories ..... 135 

3. The Law of Subcontraries ..... 135 

4. The Law of Subalterns 135 

Supplementary Topic. — All Concepts involve a Primitive Judgment 135 

CHAPTER II.— THE SYLLOGISM. 

Section!. — Analysis of the Syllogism. 
T[ I. Mediate Eeasoning ....... 136 

IL Analysis of the Syllogism. Two principles emerge, viz. : Every 
Syllogism must contain : 

1. Three and but three Terms . . . . . 136 

2. Three and but three Judgments ..... 136 

Sec. II. — Laws of the Syllogism. 

1. Law of the Terms ....... 137 

2. Law of the Judgments ....... 137 

3. Law of the Middle Term ...... 137 

4. Law of Affirmative Premise ...... 137 

5. Law of Weaker Premise . . . • . . . 138 

6. Law of Particular Premises ...... 138 

Sec. III. — ^FoEMs of the Syllogism. 
TT I. Categorical Syllogisms ...... 138 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xix 

PAGE 

IT II. Conditional Syllogism. Three Forms emerge, viz. : 

1. The Hypothetical 139 

2. The Disjunctive ....... 139 

3. The Dilemmatic . . . . . . .139 

Sec. IV. — Value or the Syllogism. 
IT I. ^ All Eeasoning syllogistic ...... 140 

II. The Syllogism guarantees Formal Truth only . . .141 

CHAPTER ni— EEASONING IN GENERAL. 
Section I. — Classification of Eeasoning with eespect to its Subject- 

Matteb. 
T[ I. Demonstrative or Necessary Eeasoning : 

1. Its Nature. — Demonstration ..... 142 

2. Its Certitude.— Absolute . . . . . .142 

3. Its Eange of Application . . . . . 142 
II. Moral or Probable Eeasoning : 

1. Its Nature 143 

2. Its Certitude 143 

8. Its Eange of Application ...... 143 

Sec. II. — Classification of Eeasoning according to its Forms. 
II. Eeasoning «^non.' 

1. Its Nature 144 

2. Its Certitude 144 

8. Its Eange of Application ..... 144 

II. Eeasoning a posteriori ....... 145 

Sec. III. — Classification of Eeasoning with eespect to its Final Cause. 
T I. Deductive Eeasoning : 

1. Its Nature 145 

2. Its Certitude 145 

3. Its Eange of Application ..... 145 
II. Inductive Eeasoning : 

1. Nature of the Inductive Process . . . . .146 

2. Vital Principle of Inductive Process : The Postulate of the Uni- 

formity of Nature. This predicates : 

(a) The Universality ...... 147 

(&) The Unity . . . ... . .148 

(c) The Intelligence of Natural Causation . . . 148 

3. Eange of Application of the Inductive Process . . .149 

CHAPTER IV.— REASONING: ITS RESULTANT PRODUCT, FAITH. 

Section I. — Analysis of its Eelations. 
IF I. Final Cause of all Intellectual Activity : 

1. Of Cognition or Perception , . . . . 150 

2. Of Conception ....... 150 

3. Of Eeasoning, Inductive and Deductive .... 150 



XX GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

H II. Faith is the Eational and only Possible Condition of Human Ac- 
tivity : 

1. Cognition only gives Knowledge of the Actual . . 151 

2. Conception can only give the Possible ; and may fail to stimulate 

Effort .152 

3. Faith alone energizes and sustains .... 152 

Sec. II. — Analysis of the Forms of Faith. 

I I. Faith in Self, or the Personal Consciousness : 

1. Faith in Itself 155 

2. Faith in its own Processes . . . . . 155 

3. Faith in its Necessary Products, viz. : 

(a) Its a priori Concepts and Affirmations . . . 156 

(&) Its Secondary Concepts or Beliefs . . . 156 

n. Faith in Nature and its Laws ...... 157 

III. Faith in Man: 

1. In his Physical Nature . . . . . . 159 

2. In his Intellectual Nature . . . . . .159 

3. In his Moral Nature ...... 159 

IV. Faith in God— 

I. Theory of Atheism : 

(«) Theory of Chance 161 

(&) Theory of Law or Destiny .... 161 

II. Theories of Theism • 

1. Theory of Pantheism . . . . . .162 

2. Theories of Personal Theism : 

(a) Polytheism . . .. ; . .164 

(J) Monotheism . . . . . .164 

V. Kelations of Faith to Character : 

1. Concentration a Condition precedent of the Evolution of Power 

by the Human Soul . . . . . .166 

2. Faith in God, the Broadest and the Highest Element of Vitaliz- 

ing Energy known to Man ..... 166 



THE INTELLECT.— SUPPLEMENTAEY TOPICS. 

DIVISION PIRST-SLEEP. 

Preliminary Analysis. 

Evolution of the Forms of Sleep. 

IF I. Natural Sleep . • 168 

n. Cataleptic Sleep 168 

CLASS I.— NATUEAL SLEEP 

Preliminary Analysis. 

1[ I. Sleep both a Physical and a Psychical Phenomenon . . . 168 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xxi 

PAGE 

If II. Final Cause of Sleep ...... 169 

III. Classification of the Forms of Natural Sleep : 

1. Perfect Sleep ........ 169 

2. Imperfect Sleep . ... . . . .169 

CHAPTER I.-PERFECT SLEEP. 
Section I. — Its Physical Phekomena. 
^ I. Indications of Approaching Sleep : 

1. General Languor and Weariness . . . . . 169 

2. Dulness and Heaviness of the Senses .... 169 
II. Physical Conditions of Perfect Sleep : 

1. Organic Action unimpaired . . . . • 170 

2. Voluntary Muscular Activity suspended . . . 170 

3. Normal Nervous and Cerebral Activity suspended . . 170 

Sec. IL— Its Mental Phenomena. 

1 I. Loss of Consciousness ...... 170 

II. Loss of Voluntary Power ...... 170 

III. Probable Activity of Mind during Perfect Sleep . . . 170 

Sec. III. — Conditions of Perfect Sleep. 

T[ I. Eegularity of its Hours ....... 171 

II. Quiet, or Freedom from Disturbing Causes . . . 171 

III. Health of Body 171 

Sec. IV.— Hours of Sleep. 

T[ I. Hours of Sleep as afi'ected by Age ..... 171 

II. Hours of Sleep as affected by Occupation .... 172 

III. Hours of Sleep as affected by Health .... 172 

CHAPTER II.— IMPERFECT SLEEP. 
Preliminary Analysis. 

T[ I. In what it differs from Perfect Sleep : 

1. The Senses are but imperfectly closed to External Impressions 172 

2. Cerebral and Nervous Action are but partially suspended ■ . 173 

3. Muscular Activity does not wholly cease . . . 173 

4. The Loss of Consciousness is but partial . . , 173 

5. The Power of Volition is not entirely suspended . . 173 
II. Causes of Imperfect Sleep : 

1. Internal or Personal Causes . . . . , 173 

2. External Disturbing Causes ..... 173 
III. Phenomena of Imperfect Sleep. — Dreams, Nightmare, Somnam- 
bulism . . . . . . . . .173 

Section I. — Dreams. 
T[ I. Nature of Dreams . . . . . . .173 



xxii GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

T[ II. Characteristics of Dreams : 

1. Their Incoherence ....... 174 

2. Their Apparent Eeality ...... 174 

3. Prophetic Aspect of Dreams. — How accounted for : 

(a) Are they mere Coincidences ? . . . . 176 

(b) Are they supernatural ? . . . . . 176 

(c) Are they the Kesult of Natural Prescience 1 . . 176 
ni. Keverie, or Day-Dreaming ...... 176 

Sec. II. — NiGHTMAEE. 

Its Nature and Conditions ........ 177 

Sec. III. — SOMIiAMBULISM. 

I I. Illustrations of Somnambulism : 

1. From Dr. Ahercrombie . . . . . , 177 

2. From the French Encyclopaedia . . . , .178 
II. Analysis of Phenomena of Somnambulism ; 

1. Abnormal Powers of Perception .... 178 

2. Abnormal Muscular Skill and Power .... 178 

3. Abnormal Mental Powers ..... 179 

III. Philosophy of Somnambulism ...... 179 

CLASS II.— CATALEPTIC SLEEP. 
Preliminary Analysis. 

J, I. Illustrations of Cataleptic Sleep : 

1. Natural Trances ....... 179 

2. Magnetic Sleep . . . . . . . 179 

3. Clairvoyant Sleep ...... 179 

II. Analysis of its Physical Conditions.— It presupposes in all Cases : 

1. Peculiarities of Nervous Organization .... 179 

2. An Efficient External Cause . . . . .180 

III. Analysis of its Mental Conditions. — It usually presupposes for the 

Time : 

1. Deficiency of Will-Power . . . . . .180 

2. Predominance of the Sensitive Nature . . . 180 

IV. Classification of its Forms, viz. : 

1. Involuntary ........ 180 

2. Voluntary . . . . . . .181 

V. Classification of its Phenomena : 

1. Visions . . . . . . . . 181 

2. Clairvoyance . . . . . . . 181 

CHAPTER I.-YISIONS. 
Preliminary Analysis. 

IT I. Natural Visions . . . . . . . .181 

II. Supernatural Visions ...... 182 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xxiii 

PAGE 

Section I. — Natubal Visions. 
TT I. Illustrations of Natural Visions ..... 182 

II. Conditions of Natural Visions : 

1. Intense Mental or Spiritual Excitement . , . 184 

2. A Sensitive Nervous Organism ..... 184 

III. Elements of Natural Visions ..... 184 

IV. Significance of Natural Visions : 

1. Are they, in any Eeal Sense, prophetic? .... 184 

2. Is Erescience an Attribute of Mind ? . . . .184 

Sec. II. — SuPEENATUEAL Visions. 

TI I." Illustrations of Prophecy ...... 185 

II. Conditions of Prophecy. — Threefold : 

1. Human : A Eecipient Soul ..... 185 

2. Superhuman : A Prescient Deity ..... 185 
S. An Adequate Tinal Cause . . . * . 186 

CHAPTER H.-CLAIRVOYANCE. 

Section I. — Evolution or its Geneeic Phenomena. 

T[ 1. Involuntary Clairvoyance ...... 186 

II. Animal Magnetism ....... 186 

III. Odism 187 

IV. Modern Spiritualism ....... 187 

V. How far Psychologists are bound to recognize such Phenomena . 188 

Sec. II. — CoMPAEATivE Analysis of these Phenomena. 
T[ I. They all involve the Affirmation of a Knowledge transcending the 
Ordinary Perceptions of Men, and depending upon Peculiar 
Conditions ........ 188 

II. They all agree in conditioning this Knowledge upon marked Pecu- 
liarities and Susceptibilities of the Complex Human Organism . 189 
HI. They all predicate, in somes Eorm and to some Degree, Cataleptic 

Sleep, as their Common Condition ... . 189 

Sec. III. — ^Philosophy or Clairvoyance. 
T[ I. Theory of Animal Magnetism. — This predicates — 

1. A Peculiar Power in one Man to produce Cataleptic Sleep in 

another ........ 189 

2. A Peculiar Power in the Sleeper to see and reveal Things un- 

known to him in his Normal State .... 189 
II. Theory of Modern Spiritualism. — This predicates Two Postulates, 
viz. : 

1. That disembodied Spirits do actually exist . . . 190 

2. That such Spirits may conceivably manifest themselves to Men 190 

III. Theory of Swedenborgianism ...... 190 

IV. Relations of Clairvoyance to Dreams, Visions, and Prophecy . 1 90 



xxiv GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

DIVISION SECOND-INSANITY. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

Evolution of the General Forms of Insanitf .... 192 

Section I. — Intoxication. 
T[ I. Phenomena of Intoxication : 

1. Mania . . . . . . . .192 

2. Frenzy ........ 192 

3. Idiocy ........ 192 

II. Nature of Intoxication ....... 192 

III. Eelations of Intoxication to Insanity .... 193 

Sec. II.— Insanity Pkopeb. 
1[ I. Its Phenomena : 

1. Mania, or Mental Abberration ..... 193 

2. Frenzy, or Madness . . . . . .194 

8. Idiocy, or Imbecility . . . . . .194 

IT. Nature and Conditions of Insanity . . .- . 194 

III. Its Lessons ........ 195 



BOOK LI. -THE SENSIBILITIES. 

PBELIMmABY DISCUSSION: 

Section I. — Analysis of the Sensibilities. 

Tf I. Evolution of Generic Ideas ...... 196 

II. E elation of the Sensibilities to the Intellect ... 196 

III. Importance of the Sensibilities . . . . . ,197 

Sec. II. — Classification of the Sensibilities. 

T[ I. General Principles of Classification . .... 197 

II. Evolution of the Emotions ...... 197 

III. Evolution of the Desires ...... 198 

THE SEN-SIBILITIES : DIVISION- FIRST. 

THE EMOTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

Section L— Nature of the Emotions. 

T[ I. Their Essential Characteristics . . . . . .198 

II. Their Eelations to the Intellect . . . . . 199 

III. Final Cause of the Emotions : 

1. Human Happiness ....... 199 

2. Human Development ...... 199 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 



XXV 



Sec. II.— Classification of the Emotions. 
f I.— General Principles of Classification ; viz. : The relations of the 
Emotions to — 

1. The Physical . .199 

2. The Physio-Psychical ...... 199 

3. The Psychical Natures of Man . . . . .199 
II. Evolution of the Physical Emotions or the Feelings . . 199 

III. Evolution of the Physio-Psychical Emotions . . . .200 

IV. Evolution of the Psychical Emotions .... 200 
V. The Ternji Emotion here used in a Generic Sense . . . 200 



THE EMOTIONS : CLASS FIRST. 

PHYSICAL: THE FEELINGS. 

Preliminary Analysis. 

TT I. The Nature of the Feelings . . . . ... 201 

II. Classification of the Feelings : 

1 . Negative States of the Organism ..... 201 

2. Positive States of the Organism .... 201 

Section I. — Negative States of the Organism. 
^ I. Physical "Weakness ....... 201 

II. Physical Weariness ....... 202 

III. Physical Discomfort ....... 202 

IV. Final Cause of these Feelings . . . . . .202 

Sec. II. — Positive Affections of the Okganism. 

l" I. Physical Strength or Conscious Vitality .... 203 

II. Pain and Pleasure . . . . . '. .203 

Sec III. — Eelations and Final Cause of the Feelings. 
T[ I. Ho"W distinguished from True Emotions : 

1. They involve Physical Sensations . . . .203 

2. They are not based upon True Intellections . . .203 
II. Eeasons for classing them with the True Emotions : 

1. They belong legitimately to the Sensibilities , . • 204 

2. They tend to generate Desires ..... 204= 
III. Final Cause of the Feelings ...... 204 



THE EMOTIONS : CLASS SECOND. 
THE PHYSIO-PSYCHICAL 
Section I. — Nature and Characteristics of Physio-psychical Emotions. 
1[I. Their Nature: 

1. They are dependent on the States of the Physical Organism 



2. They involve True Affections of the Soul 

3. They are but slightly dependent upon prior Intellections 



204 
204 
204 



XXVI 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 



Tl II. Their Characteristics : 

1. They are less intense than the Emotions proper . . 205 

2. They are more persistent and permanent .... 205 

Sec. II. — ^FoBMS ob Modes of the Phtsio-psychical Emotions. 
1" I. Cheerfulness and Melancholy : 

1. Their Nature ........ 205 

2. Their Causes or Conditions ..... 205 

3. Their Eelations . . . . . . .206 

II. Interest and Ennui : 

1. Their Conditions — 

(a) Physical, pertaining to the Organism . . . 207 

(b) Intellectual and Moral ..... 207 

2. Their Psychological Eelations ..... 207 
III. Anxiety and Indifference : 

1. Then- Nature ........ 207 

2. Their Eelations ....... 208 



THE EMOTIONS: CLASS THIED. 
PSYCHICAL OS EATIONAL EMOTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 
Their Natube, Chabactebistics, and Classification. 
TL Their Nature: 

1. They are purely rational ..... 

2. They predicate, in all Cases, a Prior Act of Intellection 
II. Their Characteristics : 

1. Intensity, Depth, or Energy of Action 

2. Instability of Dui-ation . 

[III. Their Principle of Classification .... 



208 

208 



208 



Section I. — Emotions of "Wondee, Subpbise, and Admibation. 
T[ I. Their Natures and Conditions : 

1. Emotions of Surprise ...... 209 

2. Emotions of Wonder ...... 209 

3. Emotions of Admiration . . . . .209 
II. Final Cause and Eelations of these Emotions .... 210 

Sec. n. — Emotions of the Ludicbous, of Disgust, and of Contempt. 
^ I. Their Natures and Conditions : 

1. Emotions of the Ludicrous. Generated by — 

(a) Degrading Elevated Things . . . . . 211 

(b) Elevating Insignificant Things .... 211 

2. Emotions of Disgust ...... 211 

3. Emotions of Contempt ...... 211 

II. Their Final Causes and Eelations. — They tend to guard Man against : 

(o) The Undignified, the Incongruous, and the Little . . 211 

(6) The Mean, the Vile, and the Contemptible . . .211 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xxvii 

FAQB 

Sec. m. — ^Emotions of Shame, of Sobkow, and of Pitt. 
T[ I. Their Natures and Conditions : 

1. Emotions of Shame ...... 212 

2. Emotions of Sorrow : 

(a) The Sorrow of Guilt 212 

(b) The Sorrow of Suffering .... 212 

3. Emotions of Pity . . . . . . .212 

II. Their Final Causes and Eelations ..... 213 

Sec. IV. — ^Emotions of Feae, of Hobeob, and of Despaie. 
T[ I. Their Nature and Conditions : 

• - 1. Emotions of Fear. — These involve, ordinarily — 

(a) Conscious Personal Weakness .... 214 
(i) Sometimes, Conscious Guilt .... 214 

(c) Anticipated Danger ...... 214 

2. Emotions of Horror . . . . . . 214 

3, Emotions of Despair ...... 214 

II. Their Final Causes and Eelations ..... 214 

Sec. V. — Emotions of Beauty, of Sublimity, and of Eevebenoe. 

I I. Their Natures and Conditions : 

1. Emotions of Beauty. Dependent upon — 

(a) Our Perceptions of the Actual . . . .215 

(i) Our Conceptions of the Ideal .... 215 

2. Emotions of Sublimity . . . ^ . . . 215 

3. Emotions of Eeverence ...... 216 

II. Their Final Causes and Eelations : 

(a) Human Happiness ....... 216 

(b) Human Perfection . . . . . .216 

Sec. VI. — Emotions of Moeal Appeoval and Disappboval. 
Tf I. Nature of the Moral Emotions : 

(a) They are primitive ....... 217 

(6) Universal Elements of Humanity .... 217 

II. Objects of the Moral Emotions, viz. : 

1. The Good or Evil Acts of Self 218 

2. The Moral Actions of Others ..... 218 

III. Eelation of the Moral Emotions to the Moral Intuitions . . 218 

IV. Infl.uence of Education, Habit, etc., on the Moral Emotions . 219 

THE SENSIBILITIES: DIVISION SECOND. 

THE DESIEES. 

Preliminary Analysis. 

Section I. — Analysis of the Desiees. 

T[ L Nature of Desire ........ 219 

II. Objects of Desire 220 

III. Final Cause of Desire . . . . . . . 220 



XXviii GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

Sec. II. — Eelations of the Desires to the other Mental States. 

^ I. Eelations of the Desires to the Emotions .... 220 
II. Eelations of the Desires to Intellection : 

1. Instinctive Desires . . . . • . . . 221 

2. Eational Desires . . ... . . . 221 

III. Eelations of the Desires to the Will 221 

Sec. III.— Classification of Desibes. 

I I. Principle of Classification adopted ..... 222 
II. Evolution of Physical Desires. — The Appetites . . . 222 

III. Evolution of Physio-Psychical Desires. — The Propensities . 222 

IV. Evolution of Psychical Desires. — The Affections and the Moral Im- 

pulses ......... 222 

THE DESIEES : CLASS FIRST. 
PHYSICAL: THE APPETITES, 
Section I. — General Analtsis. 
T[ I. Nature and Characteristics of the Appetites : 

1. They are physical in their Origin and Normal Conditions . 223 

2. They are occasional and not continuous .... 223 

3. They involve Physical Uneasiness or Discomfort . . 223 
n. Their Final Causes and Eelations : 

1. The Preservation and Continuous Eeproduction of Human Life 223 

2. Human Gratification ...... 223 

Sec. II. — ^FoRiis of the Appetites. 
TI I. Natural Appetites ....... 223 

II. Acquired Appetites : 

1. Their Nature and Conditions ..... 224 

2. Their Tendencies ...... 225 

Sec. ni. — ^MoRAL Eelations of the Appetites. 
T[ I. Instinctive Appetites ....... 225 

II. Voluntary Appetites ....... 226 

HI. Morbid Appetites : 

1. Hereditary Appetites . . . . . . 226 

2. Acquired Appetites . . . . . . 226 

3. Diseased Appetites . . . . . . .227 

THE DESIRES : CLASS SECOND. 

PHYSIO-PSYCHICAL : THE PBOPENSTTIES. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

I I. Distinctive Nature of the Propensities . . . . 227 
II. Eelative Eank of the Propensities ..... 228 

III. Order of Evolution and Dependence of the Propensities : 

1. Evolution of Self-Love and the Selfish Propensions . 228 

2. Evolution of Sociality and the Social Propensions . . 228 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX xxix 



CHAPTEK I.— THE SELFISH PROPENSIONS. 

Section I. — Self-Love. 
IT I. Nature of Self-Love. — It includes the Principles — 

• 1. Of S elf-Preservation . . • . . . .229 

2. Of Self-Assertion . . . . . . .229 

3. Of Self-Gratification . '. . . . .229 
IT. Its Moral Character . . . . . . .229 

III. Its Psychological Eelations : 

1. It is involved, explicitly or implicitly, in all our Appetites and 

Propensions ....... 230 

2. It reacts upon and intensifies our Higher Forms of Desire . 230 

3. It is, in all Cases, legitimately subordinate to Conscience . 230 

Sec. II. — Curiosity, AcQirisiTivENESs, and Ambition. 
Tf I. Curiosity, or the Desire of Knowledge : 

1. Its Nature and Conditions. — Two Forms emerge — 

(a) Vain Curiosity ....... 230 

(b) True Desires to know ..... 230 

2. Its Final Cause and Eelations . . . . . 231 
II. Acquisitiveness, or the Desire of Possession : 

1. Its Nature and Conditions ..... 231 

2. Its Final Cause and Moral Eelations .... 231 
III. Ambition, or the Desire of Power : 

1. Its Nature and Conditions ..... 232 

2. Its Final Cause and Eelations . . . , , . 232 

CHAPTER II.-THE SOCIAL PROPENSIONS. 

Section I. — Sociality, or the Desire of Society. 
TI I. Nature of the Social Propension : 

1. Its Nature and Conditions ..... 233 

2. Its Strength 233 

II. Final Cause and Eelations of the Social Propension . . 233 

Sec. II. — Imitativeness, Approbativeness, Emitlation, and Veracity. 
T[ I. Imitativeness : 

1. Its Nature and Characteristics ..... 234 

2. Its Final Cause and Eelations ..... 235 
II. Approbativeness : 

1. Its Nature and Characteristics . . . . .235 

2. Its Final Cause and Eelations . . . . .236 
III. Emulation: 

1. Its Nature and Origin . . . . . .237 

2. Its Final Cause and Eelations ..... 237 
rV. Veracity: 

1. Its Nature and Characteristics . . . . . 238 

2. Its Final Cause and Eelations . . . . . 238 . 



XXX GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

8UPPLEMENTABY TOPICS. 
Hope aitd Feab. 
1[ I. Peculiarity of these Forms of Sensibility : 

1. They have no Single Peculiar Object, sui generis^ like other Pro- 

pensions ........ 239 

2. They are Concomitant and not Independent States of the Sen- 

sibility ....... 239 

3. They are intimately dependent upon Physical Eelations and 

Conditions . ..... 239 

n. Hope: 

1. Analysis of its Elements ..... 239 

2. Analysis of its Eelations . . . . . .240 

m. Fear: 

1. Analysis of its Nature and Conditions . . . 240 

2. Analysis of its Eelations ...... 240 

THE DESIRES : CLASS THIRD. 
PSYCHICAL : THE AFFECTIONS AND MORAL IMPULSES. 
Preliminary Discussion. 
T I. Seasons for classing the Affections and Moral Impulses with the 
Desires : 

1. They express Appetencies of the Soul, and not mere Emotions 241 

2. Like Desires, they act upon the "Will in the Eelation of Motives 

to Volition ....... 241 

II. Eeasons for discriminating the Moral Impulses from the Affections : 

1. They differ in their Objects ..... 242 

2. Their Central, Vitalizing Elements are diverse . . . 242 

DIVISION L— THE ATFECTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 
Section I. — Psychological Basis or the Affectioks. 
T[ I. They are grounded in the Propension of Sociality . . 242 

II. They are based upon Intellections mediated by the Emotions and 

conditioned by S elf-Love . . . . . . 243 

III. Their Common Vitalizing Element, Love : 

1. Love considered as a Generic Conception . . . 243 

2, Its Conditionating Elements : 

(a) Intrinsic Excellence of Character .... 244 
(&) Eelations of Dependence, Consanguinity, and Affinity 244 

Sec II. — Classieication or the Affections. 
^ I. General Principles of Classification .... 244 

n. Evolution of the Malevolent Affections : 

1. Negative Form, simple Not-Love . . . . . 245 

2. Positive Form, Eesentment ..... 245 
m. Evolution of the Benevolent Affections . . • . . 245 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. yyyi' 

TAJSB 

CHAPTER I.-THE MALEVOLENT APFECTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 
If I. Malevolence : 

1. Nature of Eesentment. — It involves a Conscious Element of Evil 246 

2. It carries witli it a Sense of Conscious Degradation . . 247 

3. Its Special Modifications : Envy, Jealousy, and Hatred . 247 
II. Objects of Human Malevolence : 

1. The Animal Eaces . . . . . . .248 

2. Men ........ 248 

3. God, whether conceived personally or representatively . 248 

Section I. — Malevolence towabd Animals. 
1[ I. Eelations of Man to the Animal Eaces ..... 249 
n. Moral Character of Eesentment toward Animals : 

1. Of Simple Indifference ...,., 249 

2. Of Positive Eesentment ...... 249 • 

Sec. II. — Malevolence towaed Men. 
If I. Nature and Conditions of Eesentment toward Men . . 249 

II. Moral Character of Eesentment toward Men : 

1. Of Simple Indifference . . . . . , 250 

2. Of Voluntary Eesentment ..... 250 
III. Final Cause of Malevolence : 

1. For the Protection of Self 251 

2. To promote the Ends of Justice .... 251 

Sec III. — JIalevolence toward God ..... 251 

CHAPTER n.— THE BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 
Analysis of the Benevolent Affections. 
% I. Benevolence, or Love : 

1. It is a Generic Term . . . . . . 252 

2. It is modified or conditioned by the Objects upon which it 

fastens ....... 252 

II. Classification of Objects of Love ..... 252 

Section I. — Love of Home and CouNTEr. 
TT I. Analysis of the Affection ...... 253 

II. Its Final Cause ........ 253 

Sec II. — Benevolence to Animals. 
IT I. Grounds of this Affection : 

1. Intriasic Character of the Animal .... 254 

2. Actual Eelations of the Animal Eaces to Man : 

(o) Those of Nature 254 

(J) Those of Dependence ..... 254 

II. Eelations and Limitations of this Affection .... 254 



•x:yYi i GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

Sec. III. — ^Benevolence to Man. 
TI I. Love of Kindred : 

1 . Its Germinal Principle ...... 255 

2. Its Special Forms : 

(a) Conjugal Love ....... 256 

(b) Parental and Filial Love ..... 256 

(c) Love of Consanguinity ..... 257 
II. Love of Humanity ....... 257 

Sec. IV. — ^LovE to God. 
1" I. Nature of the Principle : 

1. Its Peculiarity as a Generic Principle .... 258 

2. Its Character as an Exclusive Principle . . . 259 
11. Basis or Grounds of Love to God ..... 259 

III. Eeflex Influences of Love to God : 

1. Upon Man's Intellectual Life ..... 260 

2. Upon his Moral Life . . . . . . .260 

lY. Is Love to God an Original Principle ?— 

1. Testimony of Consciousness ..... 260 

2. Testimony of the Scriptures . . . . . 261 



DIVISION II.— THE MOEAL IMPULSE, OE CONSCIE]!>rCE. 
Freliminary Discussion. 

% I. The Intellectual Basis of our Moral Impulses, or Conscience : 

1. The Intuitive Concept of the Eight .... 262 

2. The Categorical Imperative of Conscience . . . 262 
n. The Emotional Element in Conscience, viz.. Emotions of Moral 

Self- Approval or Disapproval ..... 263 

in. The Motive Power of Conscience ..... 263 

Section I. — Natuee of the Mokal Impulse. 
T I. It is not a Simple Judgment ..... 264 

n. It is not a Simple Emotion ...... 264 

III. Its True Nature : 

1. It resembles the True Desires — 

(a) In sustaining, like them, the Eelation of a Motive to Volition 264 
(&) Like them, it is persistent .... 264 

2. It is unlike the Desu-es Proper, in that it pei-petuates itself after 

its Proper Fruition or Failure . . . . .265 

Sec. II. — Characteristics or our Moral Impulses. 

Tf I. They are simple and primitive ..... 265 

II. They are universal . . . . . . . 265 

in. They are authoritative ...... 266 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xxxiii 

PAGE 

Sec. ni.— Are the Decisions of Conscience final I 
TT I. They are not infallible. — Erroneous Decisions of Conscience are 
conditioned : 

1. Upon Incorrect Intellectual Processes .... 266 

2. Upon Imperfect or False Premises .... 267 

3. Upon Imperfect Moral Emotions, or Moral Impulses . . 267 
n. The Decisions of Conscience are final. — There is no other Admis- 
sible Authority : 

1. The Authority of the State considered ... 268 

2. The Authority of the Church considered . . . .268 

3. The Authority of Eevelation considered ... 269 
III. Limits of Moral Eesponsibility for Conscientious Action. — Truly 

Virtuous Action presupposes : 

1. Unbiassed Inclinations . . . . ... 270 

2. Conscientious Desire to know Duty .... 270 

3. Logical Precision of Judgment . . . . .270 



BOOK III. -THE WILL. 

PBELIMINAEY ANALYSIS. 
Section I. — Natube of the Problem. 
^ I. Analysis of Eesults reached in Books First and Second ; viz. : 

1. Determination of the Intellect and its Processes and Products 272 

2. Determination of the Sensibilities and their States and Afi^ections 272 

3. Evolution of the Phenomena of Volition and the Department of 

the Will 272 

II. Importance of this Department of Mind .... 273 

III. Difficulties attending its Investigation : 

1. From the Intrinsic Character of the Will as an Element of Soul- 

Life ........ 273 

2. From the Peculiarities of its Phenomena . . . 274 

Sec. II. — Methods of Investigation. 

TT I. Consciousness the Sole Instrument of Investigation . . .274 
II. Evolution of the Generic Phenomena of the Will : 

1. Of Volition as its Primary Product .... 275 

2. Of Moral Agency as its Secondary .Pro duct . . .276 
III. General Plan of Discussion adopted .... 276 

CHAPTER I.— FUNDA^IENTAL CONCEPTS: NECESSITY, LIBERTY, AND 
MORAL AGENCY. 

Section I. — General Concepts evolved. 

TT I. Evolution of Primary Concepts : 

1. Of Operation and Action ...... 277 

2. Of Causation and Volition ..... 277 

3. Of Necessity and Liberty . . . . . .277 



XXXiv GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 

PAGE 

T[ II. Identification, severally, of the First and of the Second Terms of 
these Correlated Pairs of Concepts : 

1. Of Operation, Causation, and Necessity . . . 278 

2. Of Action, Volition, and Liberty . . . . .278 

Sec. II. — Atfikmation or the Kealitt of the Category of Necessity. 
IT I. Causation and Necessity are the Actual Attributes of the Concept 

of Operation ....... 278 

II. Operation, as conditioned by Causation and Necessity, is attributed 

primarily to Matter . . . . . . .279 

Sec. III. — Affirmation of the Eeality of the Category of Liberty. 
TT I. Volition and Liberty are actually identified as the Necessary At- 
tributes of Action . . . . . . .279 

II. Action or Agency, as conditioned by Volition and Liberty, is predi- 
cated, spontaneously, universally, and exclusively, of Man : 

1. Testimony of Personal Consciousness .... 280 

2. Testimony of Language . . . . . 281 

3. Testimony of the Phenomena of Moral Kesponsibility and 

Moral Accountability ...... 281 

CHAPTER II.— EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PERSONALITY. 

Section" I. — Laws of the Physical Personality . . . 282 

Sec. II. — ^Laws of the Spiritual Personality. 
IT I. Liberty not an Attribute of Intellect : 

1. Our Percepts are mediated by Sensations .... 283 

2. Our Concepts are based upon our Percepts . . . 283 

3. Our Beliefs are necessitated by our Percepts and Concepts . 284 
II. Liberty not an Attribute of the Sensibilities : 

1. Our Emotions are based upon Intellections ... 286 

2. Our Desires are based upon our Emotions . . . 286 
III. Liberty is an Attribute of the WiU 286 

Sec. m. — The "Will the True Personality and a True Cause. 

T[ I. The Will is the True Personality 287 

II. The Will, as the True Personality, is a True Cause ; i. e., a True 

Primary, and not merely a Secondary, Cause . . . 288 

CHAPTER ni.-ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 

Preliminary Analysis, 

EvoLjJTiON or the Integral Elements of a Volition . . . 290 

Section I. — Possible Actions considered. 
% I. Altemativity a Condition Precedent of Possible Action . . 291 

II. Altemativity of Possible Action a Condition Precedent of Liberty 291 



GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. xxxv 



Sec. II. — Motives consideked. 

TT I. Nature and Classification of Motives : 

1. Natural Desires . . . . . . . 292 

2. Moral Impulses ....... 292 

II. Necessary Plurality of Motives ...... 292 

III. Plurality of Motives the Second Condition Precedent of Human 

Liberty ........ 29S 

Sec. III. — Choice consideked. 

II I. Nature of Choice : 

1. Physical Analogies considered ..... 295 

2. Eational Analogies considered ..... 295 
II. Conditions of Choice : 

1. Alternativity of Objects . . . . . .295 

2. Plurality of Motives ...... 295 

3. Independence of Agency ...... 295 

III. Eelations of Motives to Choice : 

1. Motives are in no Sense the Cause of Choice , . . 296 

2. Motives are the Occasions rather than the Conditions of Choice : 

(a) Tendency of Causal Idea to usurp a Position of Absolute 

Universality ....... 299 

(J) Absurdity of affirming Absolute Universality of Category 

of Causation ...... 299 

(e) The Canon of Causation itself necessitates the Conception 

of a First or Uncaused Cause . . . .299 

3. Simple Incomprehensibility no Evidence of the Falsity of any 

Theory of the Phenomena of Mind . . . 300 

IV. Eesulting Conclusions : 

1. A Necessitated Choice a True Self-Contradiction . . 300 

2. Moral Eesponsibility for a Necessitated Choice incredible and 

absurd . . . . . . .-301 

Sec. IV. — Executive Volition considered. 

1" I. Nature of Executive Volition . . . . . .302 

II. Psychological Eelations of Executive Volition : 

1. Its Eelations to Choice ...... 302 

2. Its Eelations to Physical Action ..... 303 

Sec. v.— Summaby of Eesuxts . ... . . . 804 



CHAPTER IV.-THEORIES OP VOLITION. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

TT I. Evolution of Generic Theories : 

1. Theories of Fatalism ...... 305 

2. Theories of Freedom 305 



xxxvi GENERAL ANALYSIS AND INDEX. 



T[ II. Theories of Freedom classified : 

1. Theories of Necessitated Volition ..... 305 

2. Theories of Free Volition 305 

Section I. — Necessitarian Theories. 
TT I. First Necessitarian Theory : 

1. It predicates Uniformity of Causal Eelations "between Motives, 

Choice, and Volition . . . . . . 306 

2. It postulates Freedom of the Will on the Ground that the "Will 

is free to yield to the Power of the Strongest Motive . 306 

II. Second Necessitarian Theory : 

1. Its Essential Postulates — 

(a) That Circumstances control or determine the Inclinations 307 

(b) That Inclinations, not Motives, determine the Choice . 307 

(c) That Circumstances and Inclinations are both Links in the 
Chain of Necessary Natural Causation . . . 307 

2. Its Theory of Liberty : 

(a) It predicates Freedom of the Will, on the Ground that it is ' 
free to put forth Executive Volitions according to its 
Actual Choices ...... 308 

(h) It implicitly if not explicitly denies that we can will 

otherwise than in Obedience to our Necessitated Choices 308 
HI. Third Necessitarian Theory : That every Movement in an Act of 
Volition is necessitated, and Freedom inheres in the Power to 
realize the Necessitated Volition in Action . . . 309 

Sec. II. — ^Libertarian Theories. 
1 1. Their Essential Postulates : 

1. The Existence of an Original Free Personality, the Uncaused 

Causeof All Things, viz., God .... 311 

2. The Existence of Secondary or Created Free Personalities . 312 

3. That Volition in its Relations to the Free Personality is a Causal, 

and not a Caused, Act . . ■ . . , . 313 

II. Proofs of Libertarian Theory : 

1. Testimony of Consciousness— 

(a) Causal Necessity, if it exist as a Condition Precedent of 

Volition, must be so recognized in Personal Consciousness 315 

(J) Consciousness extends to the Potential as well as to the 

Actual Powers of the Human Soul .... 315 

2. Testimony of Language. Attesting the Popular Consciousness 

of Freedom as an Attribute of Will . . . 316 

8. Testimony of Civil Government as an Actual Evolution of 

Humanity . . . . , . . 317 

4. Testimony of Man's Actual Moral ITature and Moral Conscious- 

ness ........ 317 



PEEFAOE 



To the practical teacher of Psychology, who has spent 
years in the recitation-room, no apology is needed for pref- 
senting a new text-book in that much-contested field ; for 
every true teacher realizes that, however much has been 
accomplished in the past, very much more remains to be 
done before Psychology as a science can take rank, in 
perfection of form and in completeness of evolution, with 
some of its more advanced congeners in the hierarchy of 
science. The writer of this new candidate for popular 
favor does not flatter himself that, in this work, he has 
accomplished the long-sought desideratum of a true posi- 
tive science of mind^ adequate to the wants of humanity 
in the afternoon of the nireteenth century; but he ven- 
tures to indulge the hope fliat, while he has added some- 
thing to the logical evolution, and classification of the 
mental faculties, processes, and jproducts, he has at the 
same time, as the result of sixteen years of labor in the 
recitation-room, been enabled to present the recognized 
facts and principles of Psychology in a form which will 
commend itself to the unbiassed judgment of the practical 
teacher, and tend, in some degree, to popularize this im- 



jy PEERAGE. 

portant but much - neglected science. It is useless to 
consume time in pr^inting out tlie novelties that appear 
in this book ; the teacher will readily detect them, and to 
his candid judgment they are unreservedly committed, 
V7ith the hope that, if they do not always find acceptance, 
they may at least provoke to a reexamination of the con- 
tested po*i7ts, and thus lead to more perfect results in the 
future. 

"^ 1 the years of study during which the anchor has 
beer; preparing for this special work, which has been, 
and is, to him a labor of love, he has used freely all the 
wa^ks that have been within his reach that treated direct- 
\ ly or iiidirectly of his theme, but it is impracticable for 
him to attempt even to specify his obligations to particu- 
lar authors, as he has not, in fact, used any in the imme- 
diate work of preparing this manuscript for the press. In 
conclusion, it only remains for him, unreservedly, to com- 
mit his work to the candid criticism of a generous public. 

The Atjthoe. 

Illinois Wesletan Fniversity, 

Bloomington, III., February, 1871. 



PSYCHOLOGY 



INTRODUCTION 
Section I. — Nature and Design op the Work. 

Psychology, or the Science of Mind, from its intrinsic 
interest and importance, has engaged the attention of 
thoughtful men from a very early period of human develop- 
ment ; and, despite its inherent difficulties, still maintains its 
prominence in the hierarchy of science. The special char- 
acteristics which determined its early and persistent study 
indicate, a priori^ its inherent difficulties, and suggest the 
probability that it will be one of the last, if not actually the 
last, of the positive sciences to reach perfection. 

^ I. Nature of Science in General. — Science is simply sys- 
tematized knowledge, using the latter term in its true gen- 
eric sense ; it must, therefore, be contradistinguished, alike, 
from crude collections of mere facts, and from unverified 
hypotheses. Much that passes under the name of science, has 
no claim to the title. It may be valuable in its own proper 
sphere, or it may be a preparative for science ; but it is not 
science. 

^ 11. Methods af Science. — The methods of modern sci- 
ence are so well ascertained and so familiar, that it were idle 
to stop to enunciate them here. They have been defined with 
an accuracy and precision that practically leave nothing to 
be desired. Sir William Hamilton has, perhaps, stated them 
in their ultimate form, as applied to the study of psychology, 
as follows : 

1 



2 PSYCHOLOGY. 

1. " The Law of Parcimony: That no fact be assumed 
as a fact of consciousness, but what is ultimate and simple. 

2. " The Law of Integrity : That the whole facts of con- 
sciousness be taken without reserve or hesitation, whether 
given as constituent or as regulative data. 

3. " The Law of Harmony : That nothing but the facts 
of consciousness be taken ; or, if inferences of reasoning be 
admitted, that these, at least, be recognized as legitimate, 
only as deduced from, and in subordination to, the immediate 
data of consciousness, and every position rejected as illegiti- 
mate which is contradictory of these." 

T III. Application of the Methods of Science to the Study 
of the Phenomena of Mind.— The application of these laws to 
the study of psychology, simple and direct, as the problem 
would seem to be, results, as all experience proves, in the 
evolution of problems complex and difficult, in direct pro- 
portion to their intrinsic importance. It is proposed here — 
• 1. To ascertain the actual phenomena of mind. 

2. To determine their real significance ; and 

3. To coordinate them in accordance with their normal 
relations of succession and interdependence, guarding care- 
fully against the introduction of any imaginary element, on 
the one hand, and against the omission or suppression of any 
real element on the other. 

Sec. II. — DEFii^-iTioiq- of Mind. 

Antecedently there would seem to be but little neces- 
sity for any definition of a term so familiar ; but there are, 
in fact, few terms which more imperiously demand accurate 
determination, since it is not infrequently used in wholly 
variant senses. It may be defined — 

^ I. Negatively; i. e., by Isolation. — It may thus be dis- 
tinguished : 

1. From matter and its phenomena. — Here, the decisive 
test is the disparity of attributes. Mind is characterized by 
thoughts, feelings, and volitions ; matter^ by extension, resist- 
ance, etc., etc. Until, therefore, these attributes can be iden- 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

tified or harmonized with each other, it is unphilosophical 
and absurd to refer them to a conlmon entity or substance. 

2. From force and its phenomena. — From these it is dis- 
criminated by its relations. Force is an attribute of mind ; 
but it is not mind. We are conscious that mind exerts force, 
but we find it impossible even to conceive that simple force 
can, by any possibility, be transformed into thoughts, feel- 
ings, and volitions. 

3. From spirit^ conceived apart from physical organiza- 
tion. — From this it is discriminated by its relations and con- 
ditions. Mind, as we know it, is embodied spirit. 

1" II. Positively, by Determinatioii. — 1. Of the condi- 
tions under which alone we actually detect its presence and 
existence ; i. e., as inhering in a vital organism, too familiar 
to us to need description here. 

2. Of its attributes. — These have already been declared, 
incidentally, to be thought^ feeling^ and volition^ phenomena 
which need no definition, since they are vitally present to 
the consciousness of every one who seeks to know mind. 

1" III. Supplementary Problem. — Is physical organization 
a necessary or an accidental attribute of mind ? 

This question, from its intrinsic importance, claims at 
least a passing notice. The question of the actual existence 
of mind, or spirit, apart from physical organization, belongs 
elsewhere, and cannot be discussed here. Limiting, there- 
fore, the discussion to the minor question, we remai'k : 

1. That the actual developments of the mind and the 
body maintain no necessary or uniform proportion to each 
other. As facts of experience, physical strength and mental 
imbecility, and mental power and physical disability, are 
found to be entirely compatible with each other ; thus show- 
ing that there is no necessary interdependence between them. 

2. The phenomena of dreams, somnambulism, and of the 
dying hour, demonstrate that they are capable of indepen- 
dent action, and indicate, not obscurely, that physical organi- 
zation is an accidental^ and not an esse7itial, condition of the 
existence and functions of mind. 



4 PSYCHOLOGY. 

Sec. III. — Nature a-^td Limitation's of the Science of 

Mind. 

^ I. It is the Science of Organized or Embodied Mind, 
and not of Pure Spirit.— Psychology, as we conceive it, is the 
science of embodied mind, and not of pure spirit. However 
it may be with man in some other state of existence, here on 
earth we know and can know mind, or spirit, only as it is 
manifested in and through physical organization. Any at- 
tempt therefore to determine, a priori^ its nature and attri- 
butes would be purely hypothetical, as well as foreign to our 
purpose. Moreover, for all the uses of psychology, a science 
of pure spirit, were it possible to man, would be wholly of 
speculative value. 

^ II. It is a Science of Phenomena, and not of Noumena.— 
That is to say, it has to do with the attributes^ and not with 
the essence of mind. It must not, therefore, be confounded 
with pure metaphysics. The two have their necessary and 
legitimate points of contact ; but their spheres are not iden- 
tical, nor are the terms psychology and metaphysics syno- 
nymes. 

Sec. IY. — Methods of Investigation. 

There have been bitter and protracted controversies in 
reference to the true method of investigating the phenomena 
of mind, and three schools have emerged, viz. : 

^ I. Of Cerebral Physiologists and Phrenologists. — This 
energetic class of modern thinkers insists that the only 
rational and scientific method of studying mind is by and 
through the study of the physical organism. This school 
subdivides into the phrenologists, who lay special stress upon 
the study of the cranial developments ; and the physiologists, 
who insist upon a thorough comprehension, not merely of 
the physiology of the brain, but also of the whole man. 

This is neither the time nor place to enter into any dis- 
cussion of either phrenological or physiological psychology. 
Should we grant the substantial truth of either or of both 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

systems, it is not apparent how either of them or both com- 
bined could relieve us from the necessity of studying mind 
and its phenomena from the stand-point of the personal con- 
sciousness. The assumption that either the exclusive phreno- 
logical or the physiological study of mind is adequate to the 
wants of science, would be fairly paralleled only by the as- 
sertion that a person totally ignorant of the properties of 
steam could adequately study and comprehend the steam- 
engine, either by a careful external examination of a disused 
locomotive on a side-track, or by an equally-careful decom- 
position and examination of the same engine piece by piece, 
conjoined to a close external observation of a. similar engine 
as it moves majesi^ically by, on the main track. The steam- 
engine, to the man who is ignorant of the nature and prop- 
erties of steam, is an unsolved and an insoluble mystery. ISTo 
less mysterious must the phenomena of mind ever be to him 
who ignores the light of consciousness, and seeks, by the most 
approved methods of phrenology and physiology alone, to 
penetrate the mysteries of this science. It is freely admitted 
that both phrenologists and physiologists have made impor- 
tant contributions to the science of psychology, but the ques- 
tion is not, how much they have accomplished, but what 
could they have accomplished unaided by the prior re- 
searches of psychologists into the facts of consciousness for 
the last three thousand years. How much knowledge of per- 
ception, for example, can be gained by the study of the 
mechanism of the eye and the laws of optics, apart from the 
facts of consciousness ? It is true the physiologist can trace 
the ray of light from the external object to the retina of the 
eye, may hypothesize (to theorize is beyond his power) upon 
the transmission of nervous impressions from the affected 
retina to the brain ; but no stretch of physiological ingenuity 
can reveal how that nervous impression is transformed into a 
thought. Nor can phrenology aid us in this dilemma, by 
contributing its much-vaunted fact that men of large percep- 
tive powers have certain parts of the cranium specially de- 
veloped; for that is only telling us that large mechanical 



6 PSYCHOLOGY. 

operations require large workshops. After the physiologists 
and the phrenologists have exhausted all their science, and 
all their hypotheses as well, we are just as far from compre- 
hending the real phenomena of perception proper as we were 
before. Phrenology and physiology have a wide scope for 
evolution, and a fruitful field of efibrt, but the pretensions so 
ostentatiously made, that either one or both of them to- 
gether can supersede the ordinary methods of psychologic 
investigation, are absurdly false. 

*j[ II. Of Transcendental Metaphysicians. — This school, 
passing to exactly the opposite extreme, seeks to evolve a 
complete a priori science of psychology from a few observed 
or assumed facts ; shutting its eyes, in happy unconscious- 
ness, to the fact that, ordinarily, the conclusions reached are 
so foreign to actual human experience, that it may utterly 
fail to furnish reliable data either to confirm or confute these 
magnificent hypotheses. But this whole process is so alien 
to the spirit of genuine modern science, that it may safely 
be discounted without further notice. 

^ III. Of Modern Psychologists. — ^This school bases all 
its processes upon a scientific examination of the actual facts 
of consciousness, availing itself, at the same time, of the 
labors of the physiologist and phrenologist, so far as they 
cast any real light upon the problem ; and it seeks, by a true 
induction from all the observed facts, to evolve a genuine 
and comprehensive science of mind. The facts of conscious- 
ness are, it is obvious, open to examination by a twofold 
process, namely : 

1. 'To a direct analysis of the phenomena of the personal 
consciousness. — This is a process, sui generis^ peculiar to the 
science of psychology, and of inestimable value. InTo one 
who has studied astronomy can have overlooked the difficul- 
ties that have beset astronomers, in all ages, growing out of 
the fact that our earth, from whose surface they attempt to 
determine the movements and relations of the heavenly 
bodies, is not in the centre of motion. The psychologist, in 
the field of the personal consciousness, possesses precisely 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

the advantages for the study of mind that the astronomer 
would possess for the study of the solar system, could he 
transfer his observatory to the surface of the sun; for he can 
place himself in the very centre of the grand intellectual 
forces of the human soul, and study them at his pleasure from 
the centre of their common orbits. 

2. To an indirect analysis ; hy observing other men, per- 
sonally or historically. — This second source of knowledge 
enables us to verify the conclusions reached through the first, 
and to detect any thing casual or individual in the personal 
consciousness. We are thus enabled to eliminate false ele- 
ments, which might otherwise enter into and vitiate our in- 
ductions. The psychologist possesses no slight advantage 
in the fact that all genuine human history is nothing else 
than a grand treasury of psychological facts stored up by 
impartial minds, regardless of psychological theories. Any 
induction, therefore, professedly based upon facts of con- 
sciousness, which contains elements, or data, of which no trace 
can be found in the evolutions of human history, may, so far 
forth at least, be safely condemned. So, on the other hand, 
any analysis of the facts of consciousness which ignores or 
discards elements of thought whose presence and influence 
in human history are unmistakable, must, for like cause, be 
rejected as radically imperfect. 

Sec. V. — General Ai^-alysis and Classification. 

A primary analysis of the facts of consciousness reveals 
decisively three, and hut three, elements, namely, thought, 
feeling, and volition. 

^ I. Evolution of the Phenomena of Thought originating 
the Concept of the Intellect. — The first and basal fact of all men- 
tal phenomena is obviously thought, in its manifold forms and 
relations. Remove that, and man sinks at once in the scale 
of being, .below the animal, with its delicate instincts and 
semi-reason. The term itself is indefinable, save to the con- 
sciousness of a being capable of thought, and to him it needs 
no definition. Thought presupposes a power, function, or 



8 PSYCHOLOGY. 

faculty of thought, and suggests, or in fact necessitates, the 
conception of a department of mind termed the intellect, 
whose specific function is the generation and evolution of 
thought. 

^ II. Evolution of the Phenomena of Feeling originating 
the Concept of the Sensibilities. — Coordinate with the functions 
of thought, or the intellect, are the phenomena of feeling and 
the functions of the sensibilities. Feelings, emotions, desires, 
affections, moral impulses, are things " familiar as household 
words." Differing as they do, decisively, from thought and 
its phenomena, they are yet almost inseparably connected 
with it in human experience, and their relations of mutual 
interdependence constitute one of the most difficult prob- 
lems of psychology. 

^ III. Evolution of the Phenomena of Volition originat- 
ing the Concept of the Will — The phenomena of volition and 
the functions of the wiU complete and close the circle. Na- 
ture's order is, usually, I think — I feel — I will ; or, I approve 
— I love — ^I resolve to possess ; or, yet again, I disapprove — 
I loathe — I resolve to reject. Volition, like feeling and 
thought, is primitive and indefinable, and is known only in 
consciousness. 

^ IV. Relations and Coordination of the Three Depart- 
ments of Mind. — Generically, thought^ feeling^ and volitio7i, 
include all the phenomena of mind. Any system of psy- 
chology, therefore, which includes them, is potentially com- 
plete, and any which exscinds either is fatally incomplete. 
Here, curiously, the radical impotence, alike of phrenology 
and physiology, as exclusive methods for the study of mind, 
emerges ; for neither the one nor the other, unaided by a 
psychological examination of the facts of consciousness, 
could attain to this radical classification of the faculties of 
mind. Corresponding to this general conception, mind will 
be considered under three grand divisions, viz. : 

Book I.— The Intellect. 

Book II. — The Sensibilities. 

Book III.— The Will. 



BOOK L— THE INTELLECT. 



PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION. 

CHAPTER I.— CONSCIOUSNESS : ITS NATURE AND 
LIMITATIONS. 

Section I. — Its ^N'atuee. 

Undeelying every form of mental action, but specially- 
prominent in the sphere of the intellect, are the phenomena 
of consciousness, or, as it is sometimes called, distinctively, 
self -consciousness. This has been variously defined to be a 
special faculty — an accompaniment of all the special facul- 
ties, and the com^mon ground, or basis, of all the faculties. It 
is, therefore, indispensable, in the outset, to investigate its 
nature and relations. 

^ I. Definition of Consciousness. — Like all other primitive 
mental processes, it is necessarily simple and indefinable, save 
by a process of isolation in thought, by which it may be 
separated from its accidental adjuncts, and be made to stand 
out, clearly and discretely, in its own proper individuality. 

1. Negatively : consciousness is not a special faculty. — 
It cannot be reduced to the same rank or category as mem- 
ory, imagination, etc., without absurdity. Men do not say, 
" Through the faculty of consciousness, I know that I remem- 
ber or imagine this or that thing." A memory and my con- 
sciousness of it are not two distinct acts of two distinct fac- 
ulties, but a single indivisible act of mind. Nor yet is it, 
as some have affirmed, a special accompanhnent of all the 



10 THE INTELLECT. 

special faculties when in action, for like reason ; this is only 
a variant form of the preceding theory, and stands or falls 
with it. 

2. Positively : consciousness is simply mind in action. — 
Mental action, and consciousness of mental action, are not 
diverse but identical processes. They can be separated nei- 
ther logically nor chronologically, and the attempt to do so 
perplexes rather than simplifies our analysis of the men- 
tal powers. It is idle to spend time in the discussion of a 
problem like this, which must be decided at last, if at all, by 
an appeal to the common consciousness of mankind, whose 
decision the thoughtful student will readily detect in the 
ordinary forms of human speech. For example, men do not 
say, " I am conscious that I imagine, or that I recollect, this 
or that ; " but, simply, " I recollect, I imagine." In other 
words, they intuitively identify the consciousness of the act 
with the act itself, and regard them as being one and indi- 
visible. Again, if the act and the consciousness of the act be 
resultants of different powers or faculties of mind, they may 
exist apart, and we may have consciousness apart from any 
act of mind whatsoever; and, on the other hand, acts of mem- 
ory, imagination, etc., without any corresponding act of con- 
sciousness — a theory so utterly at variance with all human ex- 
perience that to state it is to refute it. Consciousness is sim- 
ply mind in- action^ under its natural or normal conditions. 

% II. Conditions of Consciousness. — Consciousness postu- 
lates, as its conditions of normal action : 

1. A healthy organism^ or, in the trite words of the old 
adage, " Mens sana in corpore sano ; " not indeed that it, or 
we, would assert that perfect bodily health or organization is 
essential to valid mental action. The latter may, and often 
does, coexist with shattered health and a diseased organism ; 
but it is, nevertheless, impaired by the physical lesion. The 
phenomena of temporary and permanent insanity resulting 
from injury to or disorganization of the brain and nervous 
systems, attest but too sadly the intimate connection be- 
tween consciousness and a healthy physical organism. 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS NATURE AND LIMITATIONS. H 

2. Suitable external conditions. — Intelligence, like sim- 
ple vitality, demands suitable external conditions for its 
evolution. Could a human being be conceived as coming into 
the world and maintaining an existence for an indefinite 
period without the use of any of its senses, it could never, 
under these supposed conditions, arrive at any degree of 
intelligent self-consciousness whatsoever, but must simply 
remain dormant, because all the necessary external conditions 
of intelligence would be wanting. 

3. Attention. — The question has sometimes been raised, 
" Can there be consciousness without any degree of attention 
whatsoever ? " This problem is confessedly a difficult one, 
since its final decision must rest upon the testimony of con- 
sciousness itself;' and it were a truism to say that we cannot 
follow that, step by step, to its vanishing' point, as we must 
do, to decide this point decisively. So far as the requisite 
process is practicable, the indications all are that there must 
be some degree of attention as an essential condition of in- 
telligent consciousness. Those holding the contrary hypothe- 
sis ordinarily appeal for proof to facts like those in which 
the skilful artisan successfully performs the most delicate 
operations of his peculiar craft and yet all the while seems 
to be intent upon something else. A slight analysis will, 
however, show that the argument is more plausible than 
real. No fact is better ascertained than that he could not 
have done so in the outset" of his apprenticeship. Then each 
separate physical act required a separate act of attention, 
but, with practice, the degree of attention required diminished, 
until, at last, the act became seemingly^ but not really, auto- 
matic. The conclusion,- therefore, is practically decisive, 
that attention is an indispensable condition of conscious- 
ness. 

Of attention itself, it is needless to discourse at length ; 
its nature and conditions are familiar to every thoughtful 
student. Nor is it more to the purpose to discuss the many 
familiar fanciful theories concerning it that are sometimes 
propounded. One perhaps deserves notice, viz. : can a man 



12 THE INTELLECT. 

attend to more than one thing at a time? — To this the 
answer must be, decidedly, yes ! The laws of harmony, in 
music, here furnish a decisive experimentum crucis, for dis- 
cord and concord are alike possible only on condition that 
we are able to attend to two or more absolutely simultaneous 
sounds at the same time. 

Sec. II. — LoHTATiONS or Coj^sciousness. 

Having thus determined, proximately, the nature and con- 
ditions of consciousness, it becomes necessary, in like man- 
ner, to ascertain its normal limitations. 

1" I. Consciousness, in Time, is limited to the Now. — I am 
not conscious of a past state or modification of mind, how- 
ever vividly I may recall or reproduce it in memory; nor 
yet am I conscious of a mental state that is future, i. e., 
that has not yet come into being, however nearly the mind 
approximates toward it. Consciousness of an act, and the 
act itself, are strictly simultaneous, and can be discriminated 
from each other neither logically nor chronologically. It 
may, therefore, be postulated decisively, that consciousness, 
m time, is limited to the now. 

^ II. Consciousness, in Space, is limited to the Here. — I 
am conscious of that, and that only, which is present, i. e., 
face to face with me, and within the proper sphere of the per- 
sonality. The question how far and in what sense I am 
conscious of a remote object, for example, of a bird singing 
in a tree, will be considered hereafter in connection with the 
phenomena of sensation. In the stricter sense of the term, in 
which it is here considered, the consciousness can neither 
^act, nor be conceived as acting, where it is not. Without, 
therefore, attempting to define the precise limits of the con- 
scious personality, it is obvious that consciousness must be 
limited to its sphere. 

^ III. Consciousness, in Fact, is limited to the Actual. — I 
am conscious of that which is, and not of that which may be. 
Under the category of existence, however, as thus conceived, 
much that is intangible to sense-perception must be recog- 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS NATURE AND ' LIMITATIONS. 13 

nized. It includes, obviously, all acts or states of the soul, 
the most intangible and evanescent as well as the most ob- 
trusive and permanent. Consciousness seizes upon the sub- 
tle play of the fancy, and daguerreotypes that upon memory 
as readily as it grasps the content of the most obtrusive 
sense-perception, or the most ponderous conclusion of the 
discursive judgment. 

^ IV. In Essence, Consciousness is limited to the Phe- 
nomenal. — ^I am conscious of mind in action, in and through 
its attributes or phenomena ; but not of mind in repose, i. e., 
of mind,^er se, in its essence. The question is sometimes 
raised, " Does consciousness grasp simply the act or its con- 
tent, or does it take cognizance of the mind as acting?" 
The problem is curiously important, and it is much as if one 
by-stander should ask another, as a locomotive-engine flits 
by, " Did you perceive the locomotive, or the motion, or the 
locomotive in m,otion f " It is obvious the reply must be, " I 
perceived all three." Under the conditions of the problem, 
the perception of either, without the others, is a simple- im- 
possibility. So of mind, no man is or can be conscious of 
mind in a state of repose, i. e., of mind in essence, for con- 
sciousness is itself activity, and the conception is, there- 
fore, self-contradictory ; but the hypothesis that we are con- 
scious only of the results or products of mental activity is 
not less absurd, for it contradicts every mtelligible concep- 
tion or definition of consciousness, which, as an integral ele- 
ment or .condition of every mental state or act, must needs 
accompany and take cognizance of the act, at every stage of 
its existence or evolution, and must, therefore, take cogni- 
zance of the mind as acting, as well as of the resultant or 
product of its activity. While, therefore, consciousness does 
not, and cannot, give us knowledge of mind in its essence, it 
does, and must, take cognizance of mind in action, and not 
merely of the products of mental activity. Our knowledge 
of mind, therefore, is real and immediate, and not wholly 
secondary and inferential. 



14 ■ THE INTELLECT. 

Sec. m. — Validity of Consciousness. 

^ I. Its Testimony cannot be verified. — No fact, psycho- 
logically, is better ascertained tliau that the testimony of con- 
sciousness cannot, in any way whatsoever, be verified by man. 
It must be accepted unhesitatingly and absolutely, or not at 
all ; there is no middle ground. The moment the possibility 
of doubt is admitted, consciousness is incapacitated to prose- 
cute the inquiries necessary either decisively to establish, or 
to destroy its own validity ; and there is no faculty of mind 
independent of consciousness which can conduct the investi- 
gation. To doubt the testimony of consciousness is, there- 
fore, de facto ^ to destroy it. "Were testimony, ^ro or con.^ as 
to the validity of consciousness possible, which it is not, there 
is no tribunal, save that of consciousness, to which it can be 
addressed, and to appeal to a discredited judge to decide 
upon his own credibility is to the last degree absurd. 

«[ n. Its Testimony cannot, rationally, be challenged. — 
This proposition is the necessary counterpart of the preceding 
one. He who would challenge the truth of consciousness 
must do it by and through the agency or testimony of con- 
sciousness itself, i. e., practically, he must accept its testi- 
mony as true, only, when it testifies to its own deceitfulness 
and falsehood — a procedure so self-contradictory that to state 
it is to condemn it. !N"or does it avail the objector to reply 
that it is competent to cross-examine a witness and destroy 
his testimony by exposing his inconsistencies and self-contra- 
dictions. This is true only on condition that there are cer- 
tain recognized laws of thought, or logic, by which the har- 
mony or contradictions of his testimony can be determined ; 
but, when the testimony of consciousness is impeached, that 
impeachment invalidates every process of thought, and every 
canon of logic as well, and renders any rational determina- 
tion of the problem morally impossible. 

^ in. Faith in Consciousness is at once necessary and 
rational. — !N"o man actually does or can doubt the clear, well- 
ascertained, decisive testimony of his own consciousness. To 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS PRODUCTS. 15 

do so, were to abjure reason, and to accept insanity as the 
highest result of human thought — the Ultima Thule of human 
progress. The most absolute of skeptics, and the most cred- 
ulous of believers, are practically one in their unhesitating 
(actual, not theoretical) reliance upon the testimony of con- 
sciousness. They may differ widely as the poles in reference 
to that testimony — the one may postulate it as the all-suffi- 
cient witness of the wildest vagaries of his faith, while the 
other limits it to the strictest assertion of his doubts, or skep- 
ticism ; but both alike, consciously or unconsciously, postulate 
its validity and build their faiths and doubts upon it. 



CHAPTEE IL— CONSCIOUSNESS, ITS PEODUCTS. 

Preliminary Analysis^. 
Evolution of the Pkoducts of Consciousness. 

1" I. Evolution of the Percept. — The slightest and most 
casual analysis of the facts or contents of consciousness 
reveals the presence of a class of mental phenomena denomi- 
nated, ordinarily, percepts or perceptions ; expressed, usu- 
ally in the familiar words, " I perceive thus and so." The 
phenomenon in question is so familiar and so radical, as an 
element of human thought, that its evolution requii-es no 
special metaphysical acumen. Perception through sensation 
is literally the door of the human soul, through which alone 
it holds communication with the external world, and obtains 
the necessary material for its multiform processes. 

^ II. Evolution of the Concept. — The materials of thought 
thus obtained in perception are grasped in memory, and re- 
produced in imagination, under the form of concepts, or no- 
tions, which, in this aspect of them, are simple mental pic- 
tures of the external object, where that is a material entity — 
or simple notions where the object conceived is a metaphysi- 
cal entity or relation. A fact should be distinctly noted here, 
which will be discussed hereafter, namely, that under the 
general term concept must be included, not merely mental 



le THE INTELLECT. 

pictures more or less perfect of objects of sense, but also our 
7iotions of metaphysical entities and relations which are not, 
and cannot be, objects of sense. 

^ in. Evolution of Judgments, Beliefs, or Faiths. — Be- 
yond and behind the percept and the concept, consciousness 
reveals to us the third and highest form of intellectual product, 
namely : judgments, beliefs, or faiths, founded upon a com- 
parison of percept with percept, or of concept with concept, 
thus originating propositions, or judgments ; and then, by a 
secondary comparison of judgment with judgment, origina- 
ting syllogisms, or trains of reasoning — the primary and 
secondary processes alike resulting in a judgment, belief, or 
faith. In this process the intellect attains to its ultimate 
product, i. e., it attains to that form of development best cal- 
culated, as will be seen in the sequel, to react upon the sen- 
sibilities and the will, and so transform or transmute itself 
into voluntary action or vital power. 

Sec. I. — ^Percepts : their jSTatuee, Conditions, and 
Limitations. 

% I. Nature of Perception. — Perception, like all other 
primitive mental processes, is indefinable, save to the con- 
sciousness of a sentient being. It is nothing more nor less 
than the cognition, or knowledge, which mind takes of actual 
existence in and through its organs of sense and the phe- 
nomena of sensation, using those terms generically rather 
than specifically. Perception, cognition, or knowledge (for 
here the terms are used interchangeably), cannot therefore 
legitimately be limited, as sensationalists demand, to the 
simple products of sense-perception, but must be held to in- 
clude knowledge of the world of mind made known or per- 
ceived in consciousness, which sustains in some respects the 
same relation to the sphere of mind that the senses do to the 
world of matter. 

Men do not say of an object of sense distinctly perceived 
and recognized, " I think that book lies upon the table," or 
that "this watch is ticking in my hand." Their uniform 



CONSCIOFSNESS : ITS PKODUCTS. 17 

expression, under such, circumstances, is, "I perceive (or 
know) that the book lies upon the table ; " or that " the watch 
is ticking in my hand." Men do not easily consent to use 
the terms " thinJc or believe,^'' in such connections. They 
realize, instinctively, that if this be not knowledge there is 
no knowledge possible to man. So, also, men do not say, 
" I think or believe that I thinJc, or I feel, or I will, thus and 
so : " but, " I am conscious (or Jcnoio) that I think, feel, or will, 
thus and so." Here, again, they intuitively challenge for 
themselves knowledge of, and not simple belief in, the exist- 
ence of the mental states affirmed. It is obvious • that, in 
both cases, knowledge, ov perception, is limited to the now and 
the here y or, in other words, to that which is present in space 
and time. I do not and cannot know that which was yester- 
day or is yonder. 

*[f II. The Conditions of Perception. — A slight analysis 
of any act of perception reveals obtrusively the external or 
material element usually denominated a sensation. This 
element is so familiar that to name it is to bring it at once, 
fully and fairly, before the consciousness of every thought- 
ful reader. It is not strange, therefore, that many thinkers, 
engrossed by its beauty and importance, have lost sight of 
the fact that it does not and cannot account for i\iQ actual 
phenomena of perception. A rigorous analysis of any single 
percept whatsoever reveals elements which simple sensation, 
however modified or transformed, does not and cannot give. 
For example, take the simple affirmation, " I perceive this 
stone is heavy." In this proposition, among other things, 
we discriminate the following elements, viz. : first, I, or self, 
the percipient subject; second, not-self, the stone, or per- 
ceived object ; third, space, or the common locality of sub- 
ject and object; fourth, time, as common to both; fifth, 
the attributes of the stone, etc. InTow, a very slight analysis 
of the simple sensation of touch, by which I determine or 
perceive the stone to be heavy, reveals the fact decisively 
that it does not and cannot, in and of itself, give all these 
elements. It assuredly does not and cannot originate or 



18 THE INTELLECT. 

reveal the concepts of self, space, and time, however it may- 
be affirmed to make kaown to me the stone and its attri- 
butes or qualities. This single example of sensation may 
fairly be taken as a normal type of the whole class ; it fol- 
lows, therefore, decisively, that simple sensation does not 
and cannot account for all the elements of human thought. 

We are forced, therefore, to seek in mind itself for a sec- 
ond and coordinate source of knowledge, or intelligence ; and 
we find it in that power or faculty of the soul which has 
been appropriately termed intuition, or the intuitive faculty, 
and which subordinates to itself a special manifestation of 
the personal consciousness whereby it takes cognizance of 
the phenomena of the internal world; i. e., of the phenome- 
na of mind, just as, by the medium of the senses, it takes 
cognizance of the phenomena of the external world. This 
process, however, although it unquestionably enters into in- 
tuition as an integrant elemejit, must not be mistaken for 
the process of intuition properly so called. That, in its 
proper sense, must be restricted to the evolution of the re- 
sultant perception, cognition, or knowledge, from the data 
given in sensation and consciousness, the former giving the ex- 
ternal, and the latter the internal factors of the complex prob- 
lem. Grasping the elements thus furnished (whose nature will 
be ascertained in the sequel), intuition, in virtue of its own 
necessary laws, affirms, "I perceive this stone to be heavy;" 
and, in this affirmation, it postulates at least the existence of 
self — the I y of not-self — the stone y of space y of time, and 
of causation, besides other residual corollaries which will be 
considered hereafter. We thus attain at once, potentially 
at least, to the integral elements of all thought. 

^ in. Limitations of Perception, or Knowledge. — Percep- 
tion is, in view of the preceding discussions, obviously lim- 
ited to the actual, known now and here, and not yesterday, 
nor yonder. This is the resultant of the fact that the 
senses, on the one hand, and consciousness, on the other, 
only take cognizance of that which comes within their 
respective spheres of action, and that they are, therefore, 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS PRODUCTS. 19 

limited, as before noted, to the now in time, and the here in 
space. The validity and extent of the knowledge we actu- 
ally obtain through perception will be discretely considered 
hereafter. 

Sec. II. — CajN-CEPTS: their ISTatuee, Condition's, and 
Limitations. 

^ I. Their Nature : the Representation of the Ideal. — 
Passing from the sphere of perception, we meet with a 
second and derivative class of mental products based upon 
our percepts ; namely, concepts^ or notions. These represent, 
in general, the matter or substance of our percepts, and are, 
so far as all material objects or relations are concerned, the 
mental pictures which we form of those objects and rela- 
tions. It must be remembered, however, that the concept, or 
notion, is not limited in its office to the representation of 
sensible objects merely ; it no less truly, though more vague- 
ly, represents supersensible objects also. As representing 
the latter, however, the concept cannot be defined to be a 
mental picture ; such an expression, even figuratively applied, 
is calculated to mislead, and has, unquestionably, been the 
source of much misconception and many errors. In refer- 
ence to all supersensible objects, the term notion, perhaps, 
better expresses the real thought involved than the term 
concept, as it has not, like the latter, become identified with 
the idea of a mental picture. It is too obvious to require 
discussion, in the light of the distinction here made, that we 
do form concepts, or notions, of a multitude of supersensible 
objects, of which, in the very nature of things, it is utterly 
impossible that we should form any mental picture whatso- 
ever. Decisive examples of this psychological principle may 
be found in the facts that the man born blind cannot, in the 
first sense noted, conceive color, nor the man born deaf con- 
ceive sound, yet both do unquestionably, in the second sense 
noted, form concepts, or notions, of color and saund. 

Concepts are, therefore, taken in their broader generic 
sense as including concepts proper and notions proper, and 



20 THE INTELLECT. 

serve to express the ideas which the mind forms of all possi- 
ble objects of thought, whether sensible or supersensible, 
real or ideal. As compared with the percept, which repre- 
sents the actual, the concept becomes the representative of 
the ideal, the possible. The one represents the world of Na- 
ture, the other, the world of thought ; the one is known, the 
other conceived. 

^ II. Their Conditions : Memory, Imagination, and the 
Synthetic Judgment. — ^The concept, as we have seen, is based 
upon the percept, but differs from it essentially in this, that 
the lattter represents that which is present, .?^o^^? and here, 
while the former always represents the absent, the then, and 
the yonder. In fact, the percept itself, as well as the object 
of perception, must disappear in order to the formation of 
the concept. It is obvious, therefore, that the first condition 
precedent of the formation of the concept is an act of mem- 
ory, whereby the contents of the percept can be held firmly 
in the grasp of consciousness until the latter can, in accord- 
ance with its own laws, evolve from them the derivative 
concept. This evolution necessarily involves an act of com- 
parison, and here, perhaps as well as anywhere, the fact may 
be distinctly announced that, in a general but real sense, all 
intellectual acts whatsoever involve an act of comparison 
either explicitly or implicitly, though, ordinarily, we cor- 
rectly identify comparison, as a special act, with the func- 
tions of judgment. In the evolution of the concept, using 
the term in its generic sense, there must, therefore, be the 
synthesis of an act of memory, an act of the imagination, 
and an act of the synthetic judgment. Technically, how- 
ever, it has been customary to separate the latter from the 
others, and to consider it in connection with the analytic 
judgment ; but viewing psychology, as we do, in the light 
of XhOi processes and products of mind rather than of its so- 
called faculties, it seems best to group it here as an essential 
element of conception. 

In the formation of concepts of objects of perception 
having a material existence, both imagination and the syn- 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS PRODUCTS. 21 

thetic judgment enter as essential elements ; but in the for- 
mation of concepts of supersensible objects tbe imagina- 
tion, practically, does not enter as a factor, and the process is 
solely that of a synthetic comparison. It results necessa- 
rily from this, as will appear in the sequel, that the spheres 
of conception and imagination are not, as has been affirmed, 
identical with each other. 

^ III. Their Limitation : the Canon of Uon-contradiction. 
— Concepts, as the representatives, not of reality but of 
possibility, are limited only by the logical canon of non-con- 
tradiction ; that is, they must not evolve self-contradictory 
attributes. No other rational limitation, it would seem, can 
be fixed to them, «^noW/ nor is any other necessary, so 
long as the true relation of the concept to the percept, on 
the one hand, and to judgment or belief on the other, is kept 
steadily in view. Grave errors, however, manifest them- 
selves at once, when conception and imagination are strictly 
identified with each other, and then are made, either sepa- 
rately or conjointly, conditions of the Jc7iowable or cogniza- 
ble: yet precisely this mistake is apparent in the writings of 
some distinguished thinkers who should have discriminated 
sharply what they have, in fact, confounded. It is obvious 
that such a mistake could only originate in an entire misap- 
prehension of the true relations of the concept to the normal 
processes of thought. The fact -should, therefore, be dis- 
tinctly remembered, that the concept is the representative 
of the ideal and the possible^ and not of the actual or the 
true. 

Sec. III. — Judgments or Beliefs : theie N'atuke, 
Conditions, and Limitations. 

^ I. Their Nature : the Determination of the True. — 
The third grand step in the process of thought brings us to 
the final or ultimate form of intellectual activity ; namely, 
to a judgment, belief, or faith. The poverty of our meta- 
physical vocabulary here compels us to use terms illy 
adapted to the purpose to which they are applied. The 



22 THE INTELLECT. 

term judgment, best meets the conditions of the problem, 
but it is ambiguous, from the fact that it is used indiffer- 
ently to express the mental faculty ^ the process^ and the prod- 
uct. It is liable, therefore, in any given case, to a threefold 
ambiguity ; but nothing better offers itself as a substitute, 
and the terms here used as synonymes, namely, belief and 
faith, are scarcely, if at all, less ambiguous. 

A judgment is nothing more nor less than the decision 
of the agreement or disagreement of two concepts when 
brought into relation with each other as the subject and 
predicate of a proposition ; or, otherwise, it may be declared 
to be the determination of a truth^ either subjective or objec- 
tive. Mind seeks, by a comparison of concept vrith concept, 
as representatives of the ideal^ or possible, to determine the 
several and contradictory spheres of the true and the false. 
In other words, ti'uth is the ultimate end, or aim, of all nor- 
mal intellectual activity, and, in pursuit of it, mind passes 
from the comparatively narrow sphere of the actual, given in 
perception, through the boundless realms of the ideal, to its 
goal in the sunny realms of truth. 

^ II. Their Conditions : Inference, immediate and medL 
ate. — Judgments, or beliefs, as a product of mental action, 
result from a process of , analytical comparison. In their 
first movement, they involve a simple comparison of concept 
with concept, in the proposition ; in the second, a comparison 
of proposition with proposition, as in the syllogism. In the 
one case, we have the copula linking concept to concept ; in 
the other, proposition linked to proposition, in a chain of 
reasoning. These several processes will be discretely analyzed 
hereafter; it suffices at present simply to indicate their 
nature and relations to judgments, or beliefs, as ultimate 
mental products. 

% III. Their Limitations : the Canons of Thought. — The 
limitations of the reasoning faculty, in the formation of no?'- 
tnal judgments, or rational beliefs, must be sought in the 
canons of thought, viz. : 

1. The law of identity, which compels us to recognize the 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS PRODUCTS. 23 

equality of a thing with itself — of a whole and the sum of all 
its parts. Its mathematical expression is the identical equa- 
tion, A=A. 

2. The law of contradiction, which declares that that 
which is contradictory (i. e., self-contradictory) is unthink- 
able. Its mathematical formula is A <> not- A. 

3. The law of excluded middle, which compels us, of two 
contradictory notions, to affirm one and deny the other, re- 
fusing any middle term whatsoever. Its mathematical for- 
mula is either A=B or A=not-B. 

4. The law of sufficient reason, which compels us to be- 
lieve that nothing exists save for, or in virtue of, a sufficient 
reason. 

Thought cannot transcend its own essential conditions, 
and hence cannot transcend these intuitive axiomatic canons, 
which are, in fact, universally recognized in the actical 
thought of myriads, who have never heard so much of them 
as their names, yet none the less yield spontaneous allegiance 
to their rightful authority. 

A subsidiary question of the objective validity of these 
laws, i. e., of their legitimate application as criteria of objec- 
tive existence, emerges here, but cannot be intelligently con- 
sidered ; it suffices to note the fact of their subjective validity 
as laws of thought^ and that is undeniable. In them, there- 
fore, we have the clearly-defined limitations of the judging 
or reasoning faculty. 

Sec. IY. — Cooedination of the Products of Consciofs- 
NESS. — Modes of Knowledge. 

% I. Intuitive, Necessary, or Presentative Knowledge. — 
Using the term knowledge in its popular, unscientific sense, 
it presents itself in a threefold form, corresponding, in gen- 
eral, to our percepts, our concepts, and our judgments. The 
first of these, knowledge through perception, is the only 
form entitled, in true scientific usage, to the name ; and it 
may be decisively discriminated from the other forms by the 
fact that it is immediate, necessary, or presentative. In a real 



24 THE INTELLECT. 

sense, it may be said that the soul, in perception, is face to 
face with the actual existences or entities which it perceives, 
cognizes, or hnows. Perception proper is never based upon 
mediate or remote inference, but, as will appear more clearly 
in the sequel — 

1. Upon actual intuition ; or, 

2. Upon immediate and necessary inference. 

It is obvious that the sphere of human knowledge, as 
thus conceived, though real and important, is narrow, and is 
but a shadow, or penumbra, as compared with divine omnis- 
cience. Man knows in part — sees through a glass darkly : 
God knows absolutely and without limitation. 

^ II. Conceptual or Ideal Knowledge. — In the popular 
sense, we recognize a second form or mode of knowledge, 
answering to our concepts, giving us knowledge of the ideal 
world. This is knowledge, not of what is, but of what con- 
ceivably may be. Man, starting from the actual known in 
perception, seeks to grasp the possible in all its ideal forms, 
seeking in thought a higher unity than perception realizes ; 
and, in the lofty conceptions of the ideal hopes, to find the 
true, in which alone the actual and the ideal find that unity 
which the soul demands. 

i" III. Probable or Mediate Knowledge. — The third form 
or mode of knowledge corresponds to our judgments, or 
beliefs, and is prohahle or mediate in its character. It is both 
technically and essentially derivative, known not intuitively 
or present atively in itself, but mediately or representatively, 
in and through other truths known immediately. It is need- 
less to add, however, that the chain may be lengthened in- 
definitely, and may be traced back through many successive 
links before a foundation of ioituitive or presentative truth is 
reached, and that, with the introduction of each new link in 
the chain, new possibilities of error and mistake arise, de- 
manding the most jealous watchfulness on the part of the 
inquirer after truth. In our inquiry into presentative knowl- 
edge, the fact was noted that man knows in part only, while 
God knows absolutely ; here, the complementary remark is 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS PROCESSES. 25 

strictly pertinent, tliat man reasons, i. e., he knows one truth 
in and through other truths previously known ; but God 
never reasons, that is, never knows, one truth in and through 
another. Man doubts, mistakes, errs; God never doubts, 
never mistakes, never errs. 



CHAPTER III.— OONSOIOUSN'ESS : ITS PROCESSES. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

Oeigin" op Thought. 

^ I. Th9 Actual Processes of the First Evolution of 
Thought are hidden by the Veil of Childhood. — In attempting 
to ascertain the origin of human thought, we are met at 
once by the supreme difficulty that its first evolution is 
hopelessly hidden from us by the impenetrable veil of child- 
hood. The soul learns to think, to feel, and to Avill, before it 
is capable of observing or registering its thoughts, feelings, 
and volitions. Nowhere else is the impotency of the ex- 
clusive physiological and phrenological modes of studying 
mental phenomena more apparent than at this point, where 
we most need aid ; but here they are hopelessly silent, or 
else content themselves, at best, with talking learnedly of 
the gradual hardening of the substance of the brain, and 
the enlargement of the cranium, preparing them for their 
proper functions. It is safe, however, to say that they do 
not now, and never can, cast one single ray of light upon 
the problem. How does mind think f 

^ II. The Potential Process discoverable. — Though we 
cannot follow, psychologically, the actual processes of the 
first evolution of thought in the mind of the child, we can, 
nevertheless, approximate satisfactorily to the potential pro- 
cess, by a rigid analysis of the actual elements of thought, 
and of their several relations to the thinking subject and to 
the object of thought. 



26 THE INTELLECT. 

Sec. I. — Evolution of the Materials of Thought. — 
Content of the Percept. 

i" I. Special Conditions of the Prol)leni. — It is obvious 
that the normal conditions of the problem could only be 
fully met on the hypothesis that we could realize the actual 
experience of Adam as he came in the vigor of a complete 
manhood by an immediate act of creation {not generation) 
from the hand of God. As thus conceived, his mind must 
have been awakened at once into conscious activity, without 
any of the gradual developments or obscuring veils of child- 
hood. If, therefore, we can seize upon him, in thought^ at 
the instant he became " a living soul," we may approximate, 
potentially at least, to the method in which his slumbering 
soul was awakened to conscious activity. In order to do 
this, it is only necessary to conceive any one of his senses to 
be acted upon by a normal excitant ; as his eye by a ray of 
light, his ear by the song of a bird, his touch by contact 
with an external object, and at once all the complex machin- 
ery of thought is wakened to vital action, and the man 
comes to the consciousness of a perception involving at once 
a recognition of his own existence and that of the external 
world, as represented by the immediate object of perception. 
In that typical percept, as our subsequent analysis will 
reveal, the soul comes, potentially at least, into possession of 
all the elements of thought. 

^ II. Analysis of a Typical Percept. — If, then, this typi- 
cal percept be rigidly analyzed, it will be found to contain : 

1. Actually, the dual percepts of self and not-self. The 
soul, in other words, comes at once to a consciousness of 
self, or the ego — the thinking subject, and of not-self, the non- 
ego — the perceived object ; i. e., representatively considered, 
man and the universe. It is obvious that man, in the per- 
ceptive act, cannot come to the consciousness or knowledge 
of the one factor, se^/", without a corresponding consciousness 
or knowledge o'f the other factor, not-self. He cannot, in 
fact, knovf them apart from each other, for, by the laws of 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS PROCESSES. 27 

thought, " the knowledge of contradictories is one." I can- 
not, for example, intelligently use the pronoun "J," save on 
the condition that I recognize a not-self from which I thus 
discriminate myself. This dual perception, therefore, gives 
us, actually, man and the universe; i. e., the category of 
being. 

2. Potentially^ but necessarily and immediately : 
(«) The concepts or intuitions of the space where 
(here), the time when (now), and the cause why, the percep- 
tive act occurred. The very terms of the proposition affirm- 
ing the perceptive act involve these elements, necessarily 
and immediately. I cannot possibly affirm any distinct per- 
cept whatever, without affirming that I perceive it now and 
here; i. e., under the limitations of space and time. So, by 
a like necessity, I am compelled to recognize the law of 
causation, linking the external object to the subjective sen- 
sation. Space, time, and cause, therefore, as necessary, im- 
plicit conditions of every percept whatsoever, may conven- 
iently be grouped under the category of limitation. As thus 
grouped, time appears as the representative of protensive, 
space of extensive, and cause of intensive, quantity. Time, 
therefore, may be represented by a mathematical line, space 
by an indefinite sphere, and cause by force. Again, each 
of these factors vindicates its right to a place in the cate- 
gory of limitation, by the fact that each is necessarily con- 
ceived under the contradictory concepts of the limited and 
unlimited; i. e., the finite and infinite. 

ih) The concepts or intuitions of the true, the beauti- 
ful, and the good. These intuitions are less obtrusive in 
their character than space, time, and cause, but are not now, 
and never have been, wanting to the consciousness of man, 
and must be recognized as primitive intuitions of the soul. 
For obvious reasons, aside from mere convenience or logical 
symmetry, they may be grouped under the category of rela- 
tion. Truth, beauty, and goodness, are obviously relative to 
some being or beings who recognize their existence and re- 
lations. 



28 THE INTELLECT. 

.3. Inferentially^ but immediately, the still more general 
concepts of the Jinite, the infinite, and their relations. 

These concepts emerge at once in consciousness when 
the category of being is coordinated with that of limitation. 
Self, the universe, space, time, cause, alike suggest the dual 
concepts or attributes of limited and unlimited, i. e., of finite 
and infinite. On the one hand, thought grasps the con- 
cepts of self, and the universe, or not-self, as finite or limited 
in space, in time, and in causation, and, in that conception of 
finite being, it comes, by virtue of the canon of contradic- 
tion, to the conception, at the same instant, of Infinite Be- 
ing, i. e., of God, filling alike space and time, the adequate, 
because infinite uncaused Cause of all things. We thus 
attain to the concepts of man, the universe, and God, the 
essential integers or factors of all thought. Stress is here 
laid upon the fact that the inferences by which these re- 
sults are reached are necessary and imjnediate, and carry 
with them, so far as any human process can, absolute cer- 
titude. 

^ III. Discrimination of the Subjective and Objective 
Elements in the Typical Percept. — Distinctness requires, in 
addition to the preceding analysis, an investigation of the 
relative number and 'lvalue of the subjective and objective 
elements in the typical percept, determining yet more defi- 
nitely the origin of our actual knowledge. The preceding 
analysis, if it has not wholly failed to accomplish the ends 
sought, has indicated, not obscurely, the relative nature and 
importance of these elements, viz. : 

1. Sensation. — This, as has been previously noted, fur- 
nishes at once the occasion and the stimulus of all mental 
activity. Apart from sensation, it is difficult, perhaps im- 
possible, for us to conceive how mind could be called into 
action at all ; or, if called into action, how it could ever come 
to the knowledge of the external world. In sensation, how- 
ever, the soul comes at once to the dual and indivisible con- 
sciousness of self and not-self, of man and the universe. It 
is idle perhaps, to add formally, that this consciousness is not 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS PROCESSES. 29 

a mere transformed sensation, whatever that may mean ; and 
the advocates of this strange doctrine not only fail to tell us 
that, but, still more strangely, ignore the fact that it is logi- 
cally incumbent upon them to do so. The hypothesis that 
thoughts are mere transformed sensations is only an unphil- 
osophical attempt to escape from a legitimate necessity of 
thought, by substituting words for ideas^ and must perish the 
moment its advocates attempt to define even to themselves 
what they mean by a transformed sensation. No ordinary 
use of the adjective transformed will meet the obvious ne- 
cessities of the case ; for example, when the hand comes in 
contact with a resisting body, there is nothing in that mere 
physical contact inducing vibrations or pulsations of the 
nervous fluids, which, however transformed^ can reappear in 
consciousness as a perception of self and not-self as coexist- 
ing in space and time. In other words, mind is not a mere 
dynamometer^ registering the force of impact acting upon the 
organs of sense ; but a true causal agent^ reacting upon and 
adding new and independent elements to the materials actually 
furnished in sensation. We are thus compelled to recognize 
in perception a second real coordinate element, viz. : 

2. Intuition. — This, as has been previously noted, sub- 
serves a double function, viz. : 

(a) That of a special consciousness, giving immediate 
knowledge of the states, afiections, and activities of the soul. 
It thus sustains, to the internal world of mind, relations 
strictly analogous to those which the organs of sense sustain 
to the material world. The two thus exactly complement 
and supplement each other, and render possible that perfect 
synthesis of the subjective and objective elements indispen- 
sable to the typical percept. 

(5) That of a conscious intelligence, of whose essence 
knowledge must be predicated as an attribute. As thus con- 
ceived it is distinctly the faculty of knowledge, immediate 
and direct.^ as contradistinguished from judgment, or the fac- 
ulty of mediate knowledge. Its special function is to seize 
upon the content of consciousness, in the typical percept, 



30 THE INTELLECT. 

and to evolve, actually or potentially, their several values 
and relations. One remark should perhaps be interposed at 
this juncture, namely : it is not affirmed, nor is it necessary to 
affirm, that, in the primal or typical act of perception, the 
mind distinctly evolves and brings into the sphere of actual 
consciousness all the elements, actual^ potential^ and inferen- 
tial^ inhering in every true percept. This, in fact, it does not 
do; that work is gradual, and may require years, or may 
never be completed in the life of the individual : just as a 
man may purchase a tract of land, and wait for years before 
he ascertains all its real elements of value ; or he may in fact 
possess it during a long life, and yet never realize all its val- 
ues, as conveyed in fee-simple in the original title-deed. 

Another thought is pertinent here. It is sometimes ob- 
jected that, if the percept be more than a transformed sen- 
sation, we have an effect resultmg from no adequate cause, 
for there is nothing else from which mind can derive the 
superadded elements. The objection, it is hardly necessary 
to say, is a bare sophism, since it ignores, wilfully, the fact 
that it is as much of the nature of mind to know, as it is of 
the f re to burn, and it is no more mysterious that it should 
do so. The objection, moreover, ignores also the fact that, 
in every scientific analysis whatsoever, man must reach a 
point beyond which his researches cannot penetrate. Thus, 
for example, the chemist, when he discovers an irreducible or 
simple element, seeks to determine its actual properties and 
affinities, but never dreams of asking the question, why it 
possesses such and such properties. Why, then, should the 
positive psychologist ignore the fact that to know is as really 
an ultimate attribute of mind as combustibility is of carbon, 
no more strange and no more incomprehensible ? 

Sec. II. Representation of the Materials of Thoitght. . 
— Conception. 

^ I. Retention and Reproduction : the Functions of Mem- 
ory. — The office and functions of memory are familiar and 
easily comprehended as facts. This faculty is to mind what 



CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS PROCESSES. 31 

♦his treasure-house is to the miner, as well as what his forceps 
are to the artisan, dealing with and manipulating delicate 
objects too small to be grasped by his clumsy fingers. It 
seizes upon and stores away the precious materials of knowl- 
edge and thought obtained in perception, reproduces them at 
the pleasure of the will, and holds them, in whatsoever point 
of view may seem most advantageous for eliciting and ex- 
hausting their several values. Without memory all mental 
development and all real progress would be impossible, for 
each percept would iitterly pass away in giving place to its 
successor, and would leave no sign to show that it had ever 
existed. Mind would be a blank, and existence less signifi- 
cant than even the fitful shadows of a half-forgotten dream. 

^ II. Representation of the Materials of Thought : the 
Functions of Imagination. — It does not satisfy the wants of 
the soul simply to retain and reproduce at pleasure the per- 
cepts which it has experienced. To stop there, were to fore- 
go a moiety at least of all the pleasures and values they are 
capable of ofiering to it. To realize these, it is indispensable 
that it should bring forth its rich stores of material from the 
treasury of memory, examine, and reexamine them, singly, 
and in combination with each other ; nay, more, that it should 
seek, by the power of a creative fancy, to evolve from them, 
in the b.oundless realms of the ideal^ all the hitherto uncon- 
ceived v-alues that inhere in them, or in any wise pertain to 
them. Herein we have the ofiice and functions of the imagi- 
nation, which seeks, from the actual world known m percep- 
tion, to evolve an ideal world of truth, beauty, and good- 
ness, adequate to the limitless wants of an undying soul, that 
cannot and ought not to rest satisfied in its earth-home. 
The evolution of the ideal, in all its rich and varied forms, is 
therefore the peculiar work of the imagination. 

I'm. Classification of the Materials of Thought: func- 
tions of the Sjrnthetic Judgment. — The sphere and functions 
of the imagination have already been shown to be less gen- 
eral than those of perception, since they are limited (as will 
appear more fully in the sequel) to sensible objects, i. e., to 



32 THE INTELLECT: 

such as are capable of being reproduced in a true mental pic- 
ture. But a moiety at least of the elements of thought given 
in perception must be classed as supersensible^ and as not 
being susceptible of being so reproduced and represented ; 
and hence, if subjected to any representative process whatso- 
ever, must be amenable to one different from that of imagi- 
nation. 

Again, a second and independent mental necessity de- 
mands likewise a supplementary process. The multiplicity 
of individual objects and attributes given in perception is so 
great as to threaten to overwhelm memory and confuse con- 
sciousness, unless this boundless variety can be reduced to 
order and unity. To this result the processes of the syn- 
thetic judgment, viz., abstraction, generalization, and classi- 
fication, directly tend. It thus evolves in conception a 
higher unity than the processes of imagination alone could 
give, and more thoroughly mediates and prepares the ma- 
terials of thought for their final evolution under the neces- 
sary forms of the analytic judgment or reason. 

Sec. in. — Elaboeation op the Materials of Thought. 

Our percepts and concepts are alike uniformly complex 
in their character as present to consciousness ; and one of 
the first normal movements of mind is to reverse the pro- 
cesses of the synthetic judgment, and to analyze the complex 
percept or concept, by evolving the proximate, and (if pos- 
sible) the ultimate elements contained therein ; not, indeed, 
for the purpose of returning to the multiplicity of perception, 
but of evolving a principle of higher unity based upon a 
scientific analysis of the unity of conception. This analytic 
process presents itself as a twofold movement, or evolution, 
viz. : 

1. TJie inductive process, whereby we discover new or 
hitherto unknown truths. And — 

2. TJie deductive process, whereby we evolve potentially 
known, but actually unknown, truths, from premises obtained 
by perception or induction. 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 33 

These two processes united give us the complete forms of 
the true analytic judgment, or, if the terms be preferred, of 
the discursive reason^ in whose lofty and self-sustained 
flights the human intelligence culminates and achieves its 
ultimate end, or final cause ; namely, a vital faith in truth 
and in God, which lifts us up from the plane of the earthly 
to that of the heavenly. 

Sec. IY. — Summary of Results. 

Our intellectual processes, in the light of the preceding 
discussions, may be grouped under the following distinct 
classes, viz. : 

I. — Perception^ or cognition^ based upon; first, sensa- 
tion ; and second, intuition. 

II. — Conception^ based upon : first, memory ; second, 
imagination ; and third, the synthetic judgment. 

III. — Judgment^ or beliefs based upon the processes of: 
first, induction ; and second, deduction. 

This analysis is, if we do not misconceive it, at once sim- 
ple, logical, and exhaustive ; albeit, the terms are, as will be 
noted more clearly in the sequel, used, outside of their ordi- 
nary loose significations, in a definite and determinate order. 



THE INTELLECT: ITS FIRST MOVEMENT. 

PERCEPTION. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

It will readily be observed that the classification adopted 
in this treatise varies from that proposed by Sir William 
Hamilton, by basing perception- upon a complete synthesis 
of sensation and intuition ; thus identifying it, strictly, with 
cognition^ or knowledge^ in the proper sense. The reasons 
for this variation have in part been given, and will appear 



34 THE INTELLECT: 

more fully in the sequel ; but it seemed proper to refer to 
them here. The separation of perception from intuition, in 
the first place, seemed to be illogical, precluding, as it un- 
questionably does, all natural grouping and classification of 
intellectual processes and products ; and, in the second place, 
divorcing perception from intuition, it reduced the former to 
the status of a mere transformation or reproduction of sensa- 
tion, destroying utterly the real significance of the subjec- 
tive elements involved in it, which, if they exist at all, must 
be referred to intuition as their only possible source, or 
origin. 

Perception will, therefore, in the present treatise, be con- 
sidered under the following general heads, viz. : 

I. — Sensation ; 

II. — Intuition; and, 

III. — Cognition, or the synthesis of the elements of per- 
ception. 



PERCEPTION: ITS FIRST ELEMEFT. 

SENSATION. 

CHAPTER I.— ITS FATUEE AND C0:N'DITI0]S'S. 

Preliminary Remarks. 

N"o subject is more familiar to human thought, and none, 
a priori^ would seem to be more comprehensible than sensa- 
tion and its phenomena, interwoven as they are with all the 
multiform experiences of our daily life, and familiar to us as 
household things. Men are, however, slow to learn that 
simplicity and familiarity of experience are not identical. 
Whether viewed in its physiological or psychical relations, 
sensations ofier now, as in the days of Aristotle, some of the 
most difiicult as well as most interesting problems known 
to man. Not, indeed, that progress has not been made, but 
that each new discovery, while it has thrown new and clearer 
light upon the problems of the hour, has, at the same time. 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 35 

revealed other and higher problems before unknown. But 
there is, nevertheless, in the history of- the past, the guaranty 
of a brighter future, of which the labors of the past have been 
true John Baptists. 

Sec. I. — Com)iTio»-s of Sei^^satiois-. 

^ I. Its First Condition : a Sentient Soul. — In order to 
attain to any accurate comprehension of the nature of sensa- 
tion, it is necessary to determine precisely the conditions 
under which alone its phenomena occur. These conditions 
may be reduced to three, and but three. 

Its first condition is obviously the existence of a sentient 
soul, or true ego, in the proper sense of the terms. The 
distinction is here broadly taken between the material and 
spiritual natures of man ; and self, or the ego, in the highest 
sense of the terms, is predicated of the spiritual nature 
exclusively, l^o fact of consciousness is better ascertained 
than the presence in the soul of a consciousness of a spirit- 
ual self superior to the physical organism that enshrines it. 
Animals share with man in many of the phenomena of sen- 
sation, yet fail in the highest and characteristic elements 
which mark it in man as a phenomenon sui generis^ because 
this higher spiritual nature, the basal condition of true sen- 
sation, is wanting. 

^ II. Its Second Condition : a Sentient Organism. — The 
second normal condition of sensation is obviously a sentient 
organism whose function is to mediate between the object of 
sense and the sentient soul. The question of the possible life 
of the sentient soul apart from its organs of sense, and of the 
nature and possibilities of consciousness, under those, to us, 
abnormal conditions, however interesting, belongs not to 
this discussion. The fact, however, may be noted, that men 
in all ages have realized a profound conviction that such a 
life exists, originj^ting in part, perhaps, in the fact thiat in 
somnambulism the soul sees with closed eyes, and acts appar- 
ently independently of its physical organs of sense. 

The sensorium itself is so familiar to us, that it need not 



36 THE INTELLECT: 

be described here ; it suffices to mark its existence as the 
second condition precedent of sensation. 

^ III. Its Third Condition. — The third condition prece- 
dent of a normal sensation is obviously an external excitant, 
or object, acting upon the soul through the medium of the 
sensorium and the organs of sense. It is needless, at this 
point, to investigate the particular forms which the exter- 
nal object may from time to time assume ; that will be done 
in the sequel. It is only necessary, here, distinctly to note 
the fact of the necessary presence of an external exciting 
cause, or object, in every normal act of sensation whatsoever. 

In the synthesis of the three conditions precedent, noted 
above, i. e., of an external object acting upon the sentient 
soul, through the sensorium, we have a true typical sensa- 
tion. 

Sec. II. — N'atuee of Sensation. 

^ I. Sensation is a Primitive Fact of Consciousness. — 

Sensation is a primitive fact of consciousness, which cannot 
be resolved into any principle or process more simple than 
itself. We may analyze the conditions under which its phe- 
nomena manifest themselves, may ascertain some of the 
steps in the complex process, and may approximate to some 
of its more patent relations to the higher movements of 
mind, but, after all, much remains that is, and ever must 
be, mysterious. The point of contact, between the sentient 
soul and the physical organism which it inhabits and ani- 
mates, is undiscovered and apparently undiscoverable. We 
may, for example, trace a ray of light from the sun to a 
material -object, as a tree, a house, or a mountain, and from 
this to the pictured image of it on the retina of the eye ; 
we may ascertain (perhaps comprehend) the laws of the 
emission, transmission, reflection, and refraction of light, 
but the most rigid analysis fails us in the attempt to pass 
from that image pictured on the retina to the sensation of 
color in the mind. All attempts to follow the process, 
through the functions of the optic nerve and of the brain, 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 37 

have utterly failed. The sensation of color may possibly be 
a transformed mhration^ ox pulsation^ of the optic nerve and 
brain, but, if so, we do not know it, and, if we did, could 
not comprehend either the mode or the significance of 
the transformation. To account for thought^ as Condillac 
has done, by asserting an idea to be nothing more than 
a transformed sensation, is to use words without meaning. 

^ II. Sensation is a Psychical and not a Physiological 
Process. — -The discrimination here made is, in the highest 
degree, important ; is, in fact, fundamental. The successive 
steps already sketched, in the process of sensation, clearly 
indicate the point of contact between the psychical and the 
physiological processes. The passage of the ray of light 
from the luminous body to the retina of the eye is purely 
mecha-nical, and in accordance with the well-ascertained laws 
of the emission, transmission, reflection, and refraction of 
light. Thus far, all is clear, philosophical, and comprehensi- 
ble ; but, beyond the image on the retina, all is obscure and 
incomprehensible. Physiologists tell us of vibrations and 
pulsations of the nerves and brain, and assure us that they 
are indispensable conditions precedent of sensation, but these 
facts cast no light whatever upon the nature of sensation, 
for that is not a vibration, or pulsation. 

Every requirement of the laws of rational induction de- 
mands that we should discriminate accurately between the 
physiological conditions of sensation and the sensation it- 
self, which, as a fact of consciousness, is purely psychical^ 
or spiritual. How the mind takes cognizance of the affec- 
tions, states, or conditions of the physical organism we 
know not, and probably shall never know. The physiolo- 
gical process will probably be more definitely ascertained 
hereafter, on the one hand, and the psychical evolution of 
sense, perception, be better comprehended, on the other; 
but there is no reason to hope that we shall ever be able to 
comprehend the connecting link between them. That lies 
beyond the reach of the scalpel of the anatomist, as well as 
the grasp of the personal consciousness. 



38 THE INTELLECT: 

CHAPTER II.— THE FORMS OR MODES OF SEITSATIOK 
Preliminary Analysis. 

Ojdinarily men use the terms sense and sensation only 
in reference to what may be termed the special senses, as the 
smell, the taste, the sight, the hearing, and the touch, 
which are characterized by the common fact that each is 
based upon a special organ or organs adapted to the wants 
of its own peculiar functions. A slight analysis, however, 
will reveal the fact that we possess other forms or modes 
of sensation, which cannot scientifically be referred to either 
of the special senses, although, somewhat loosely, they have 
been included under the sense of touch. Such are the sen- 
sations of cold and heat, hunger and satiety, pain and pleas- 
ure, languor^and weariness, etc. These are all characterized 
by the common fact or peculiarity that they have not, like 
the special senses, any peculiar organs upon which their 
functions depend, but seem to inhere in, or fasten upon, the 
whole, or else on the various parts of the complex organism, 
or body. They may, therefore, with propriety, be called 
the general senses. 

Our senses, then, may fitly be considered under the fol- 
lowing general divisions and subdivisions, viz. : 

I. — The General Senses. — These may be subdivided 
into : 

1. Muscular sensations, which seat themselves in the 
muscular system, as weariness, languor, etc. 

2. Organic sensations, seating themselves in special or- 
gans, as hunger in the stomach. 

II. — 21ie Special Senses, viz. : 1. Smell. 2. Taste. 3. Hear- 
ing. 4. Sight. 5. Touch. 

Sec. I. — The Geisteeal Senses: Muscular Sensations. 

^ I. Their Nature and Conditions. — The muscular sensa- 
tions, as such, inhere in and belong to what is termed the 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 39 

muscular system, and fasten upon no special part or portion 
of it. Wherever the muscular tissue is present with its ac- 
companying nerves and blood-vessels, these sensations, such 
as muscular locality, languor, weariness, elasticity, vitality, 
manifest themselves. 

^ II. Their Relations and Final Cause. — The muscular 
sensations subserve two important purposes in the economy 
of humanity, namely : 

1. They indicate muscular locality. Every person is 
conscious of the readiness with which, at any time, without 
the aid of any of his special senses, he determines the relative 
position of any member of his body, and this power is only 
lost by the paralysis, temporary or permanent, of the corre- 
sponding nerves. Of the importance of such knowledge it 
were idle to speak, its value is self-evident. 

2. They indicate, decisively, the condition or wants of 
the muscular apparatus. Thus the sense of languor and 
weariness warns of the necessity of rest or repose ; and so 
of the rest. They are IN'ature's sentinels to guard the body 
from harm. 

Sec. II. — The General Senses : Organic Sensations. 

^ I. Their Nature and Conditions. — The organic sensa- 
tions differ from the muscular, in the fact that they are, to a 
certain degree, localized in particular organs, and are, as it 
were, adjuncts or indices of the special functions of those 
organs. Among them may be classed palpitation of the 
heart, neuralgic pains in the head, face, or teeth, hunger and 
satiety in the stomach, etc., etc. The organic sensations are 
peculiar also, in the fact that, in general, they depend for 
their existence upon some abnormal condition of the particu- 
lar organ in which they inhere. Thus hunger and satiety 
alike indicate tendencies away from the normal state of the 
stomach, justifying the remark of a distinguished writer, 
that " a perfectly healthy man hardly knows that he has a 
stomach ; a dyspeptic scarcely realizes that he has any thing 
else." 



4:0 THE INTELLECT: 

T II. Their Final Cause and Relations. — The relations of 
these sensations to the welfare of the organism as a whole is 
obtrusively evident. Pain is an ever- watchful sentinel, guard- 
ing even the most careless against the approach of danger, 
by warning them of greater evils to come. Hunger is the 
faithful mentor that reminds us of the wants of our bodies ; 
satiety, the guardian that tells us when those wants are satis- 
fied. It were useless, in a treatise like the present, to attempt 
an exhaustive catalogue of these sensations ; it suffices to in- 
dicate their general nature and relations to the organism. 

Sec. III. — The Special Sei^ses : the Smell. 

% I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions. — The phys- 
iological organs and conditions of this sensation are familiar 
— the nose, with its sensitive lining membrane, an expansion 
of the olfactory nerve, constituting the subjective organ ; and 
the presence in the atmosphere of minute particles of matter 
thrown off from odoriferous bodies, and comilig in contact 
with this oKactory membrane, constituting, />erAa^95, the objec- 
tive condition. In reference ' to certain classes of odors, as 
camphor and musk, the presence of odoriferous particles is 
proved by the gradual waste of the parent body ; in others, 
as cedar or sandal-wood, no such waste is apparent, but may 
be fairly assumed. 

i" II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products. — Of the 
process of smelling, beyond the synthesis of its subjective and 
objective conditions, we know nothing ; of its physiological 
products, but little more. Physiologists do indeed, in all such 
cases of special sensation, either postulate or demonstrate a 
pulsation, or vibration, of the olfactory nerve in smelling, and 
of the optic nerve in seeing, etc., etc. ; but here their science 
■» ends ingloriously, for they cannot, even by hypothesis, ac- 
count for the fact that the pulsations, or vibrations, of the one 
nerve produce the phenomena or sensation of smell, while 
those of the other produce the sensation of sight. I^or can 
they distinguish any difference in the substance of the sev- 
eral nerves, or in the law or rhythm of their vibrations, and, 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 41 

if tliey could, the problem would still remain a mystery why 
the one produced the phenomena of smell, and the other those 
of vision. These facts prove conclusively, if proof were neces- 
sary, that the sensations themselves are purely and exclusive' 
ly psychical -prodvLGts, known only in consciousness. 

% III. Its Relations to Externality. — Our previous anal- 
ysis postulates distinctly two well-marked mechanical or spa- 
tial relations, viz. : 

1. An extended and localized sensorium ; viz., the nose 
and its extended lining membrane ; and, 

2. Material particles, or a vibrating medium in space, 
coming in contact with the sensorium. 

These spatial elements, as conditions precedent of the sen- 
sation, prove conclusively that this sensation alone would fur- 
nish, though obscurely, all the absolutely indispensable ele- 
ments of a typical percept, and mediate for us, therefore, the 
essential elements of thought. 

Sec. IV. — The Special Senses : the Taste. 

% I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions. — The or- 
gan of taste is the tongue, with its numerous papillae and 
nervous filaments. It is at the same time an organ of touch 
proper, of a very delicate character, and this fact, if not dis- 
tinctly marked, is Kable to lead to confusion in the investi- 
gation of its phenomena. The nerves of touch predominate 
in and around the point of the tongue ; the nerves of taste, 
near its base, or root. Every sensation of taste is, therefore, 
if strictly analyzed, twofold, involving at once savor and re- 
sistance. 

The physiological conditions of taste are easily deter- 
mined, and may be reduced to the simple contact of the ex- 
ternal excitant, in a liquid or semi-liquid form, with the 
tongue. An insoluble body is tasteless, since in its solid 
form it cannot come into true normal contact with the gusta- 
tory nerve, while it may, and will, exert its full force upon 
the tactual nerves. The only sensations, therefore, returned 
by the contact of such a body with the tongue must be mw5- 



42 THE INTELLECT: 

cular^ organic^ or tactual. Of such a body, we necessarily 
say that it is tasteless. It may be hot or cold, rough or 
smooth, hard or soft, heavy or light ; but all these qualities 
are revealed through other than the true gustatory nerves ; 
these respond only to the chemical, and not at all to the 
mechanical, qualities of bodies. 

^ II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products. — Here, 
as in the case of the smell, there is much of doubt and ob- 
scurity resting upon the whole problem. The physiological 
products can only be determined analogically, and must be, 
as in the previous case, resolved into some special form of 
nerve vibration, or pulsation, which we can in no wise iden- 
tify or even connect with the true psychical sensation of 
savor. Much remains to be done, both chemically and 
physiologically, before the true relations of the excitant body 
to the gustatory nerves can be determined, and still more 
before we can comprehend the relations of either to the 
psychical sensation. The latter must remain to us, mean- 
time, a primitive and indefinable phenomenon known only in 
consciousness. 

% III. Its Relations to Externality. — The relations of 
taste to externality, may, practically, be identified with those 
of touch, in virtue of its secondary function as an organ of 
touch. How far space or externality is involved in the func- 
tions of the true gustatory nerves is a far more difficult prob- 
lem. There is room to question whether, apart from its func- 
tions of touch, taste could give any thing else than purely 
subjective conditions ; and, so far forth, facts seem to confirm 
the prevalent opinion that taste, as such, cannot originate 
the idea of externality. In fact, however, taste is never dis- 
severed from touch, and the idea is consequently never want- 
ing. 

Sec. V. — The Special Sei^ses: the Hearing. 

^ I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions. — In pass- 
ing from the taste to the hearing, we come as it were into a 
new world, presenting an entirely new order of phenomena. 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 43 

The physiological organ of hearing, the ear, is a complex 
of nerves, membranes, bones, etc., etc., arranged in a singular 
congeries of openings, or canals, in the substance of the tem- 
poral bones, the obvious design of which is to take up and 
convey to the brain the vibrations, or pulsations, of the so- 
nant body. The essential conditions of the sensation are the 
vibrations of the sonant body and the intervention, between 
it and the external ear, of a vibratory medium, as air, water, 
etc. The fact is well ascertained that in a perfect vacuum 
no sound could exist, and that, other things being equal, the 
denser the medium, the more perfect is the transmission of 
sound. 

^ II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products. — The 
physiological product, in this process, has already been de- 
clared to be vibrations, or pulsations, transmitted from the so- 
nant body to the auditory nerve, through the complex appa- 
ratus of the external and internal ears. The psychical prod- 
uct is familiarly known to us, in consciousness, as sound, in 
its various modifications of loud and soft, articulate and in- 
articulate, musical and discordant, etc. Here, as in the 
senses previously noticed, the unlikeness of the physiological 
to the psychical product is obtrusively evident, fully justify- 
ing the seemingly paradoxical' statement, that, *' if there were 
no ears, there would be no sounds ; " and, perhaps, equally 
justifying the beautiful fancy of the old Greek philosopher, in 
reference to the music of the spheres. Physiologically, the 
fact is well ascertained that no two men hear under precisely 
the same physical conditions. One will distinguish sound 
on a lower key than the other ; while the other will, per- 
haps, follow sound to a higher key than his comrade can do. 
Thus, if a sonant body were made to vibrate in their pres- 
ence, very slowly at first, the vibrations will be apparent to 
the eye before any sound is heard. Now, let the rate of vi- 
bration be gradually increased, and first one, and then the 
other, will detect sound, with ordinarily an appreciable inter- 
val between them. If the acceleration be still continued, a 
point will at length be reached when first one, and then the 



44 THE INTELLECT: 

other, will cease to hear any sound, the vibrations still con- 
tinuing. No sound is heard at either extreme, because the 
human ear is incapable of distinguishing such vibrations out- 
side of a certain maximum and minimum of velocity. 

^ III. Its Relations to Externality. — ^Here, as in the 
previous cases noted, the external excitant may be decisively 
discriminated ; namely, the sonant body. Here, also, the oc- 
casional presence of abnormal conditions must be noted, such 
as the roaring or singing in the ears that attends upon cer- 
tain forms of disease, arising ordinarily from a congested 
state of the blood-vessels of the auditory apparatus, abnor- 
mally exciting or stimulating the auditory nerve, which, of 
necessity, responds in the only mode possible to it, by pro- 
ducing a sensation of sound. In some cases it is probable 
that the indefinite roaring or singing, actually perceived, 
results from a preternatural sensitiveness of the auditory 
nerve, rendering audible sounds produced by pulsations of 
the atmosphere, which the ear in its normal state is incapable 
of distinguishing. 

In its spatial relations, hearing ranks above either smell 
or taste, the phenomena of sound offering readily to the in- 
tuitive consciousness all the data necessary for the affirma- 
tion alike of space and externality. 

Sec. yi. — The Special Senses: the Sight. 

T I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions. — The phys- 
iological organs of sight, viz., the eyes, are distinctly marked, 
and their physiological and mechanical laws or conditions 
are well ascertained. The scientist readily and satisfactorily 
traces the ray of light in its passage through space, from the 
luminous body to the object of vision, and thence to the eye, 
and satisfactorily accounts for every step in the process, in- 
cluding the picture on the retina. Thus far the process is 
easy and satisfactory ; the nature of the organs and the laws 
of the reflection, refraction, and transmission of light are 
definitely ascertained, but, beyond this, all is unsolved and 
perhaps insoluble mystery. The existence of an image of 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 45 

the external object on the retina of the eye in no wise helps 
us to comprehend the sensation of sight. That image ex- 
isted on the retinas of men's eyes for thousands of years be- 
fore its presence was even suspected, and even now we know 
of its existence only indirectly and inferentially ; and the 
fact, when known, casts no light whatever upon the psychi- 
cal problems of the sensation of sight. 

^ II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products. — The phys- 
iological products of the sense of sight are limited to the 
image on the retina and to the resulting vibrations, or pulsa- 
tions, of the optic nerve. The functions of the image on the 
retina, in its relations to vision, we cannot even guess, much 
less determine scientifically; we know only that it is an in- 
dispensable condition precedent to it. 

The psychical product, i. e., the sensation proper, is that 
of light and shade, or color with its necessary conditions. 
Fundamental among these must be reckoned surface, i. e., 
extension, inasmuch as an unextended color is a simple con- 
tradiction or nonentity. Here, again, the non-similarity be- 
tween the external cause and the subjective phenomena of 
vision is, like the congeneric relations of hearing, obtrusively 
evident ; so that it may safely be said that, were there no 
eyes in the universe, there would be no color or light in the 
proper sense of those terms. 

^ III. Its Eelations to Externality. — ^Like every other 
special sense, the eye demands its own proper external exci- 
tant in order to its normal action ; and this excitant is the 
ray of light falling upon the cornea and refracted to the re- 
tina, producing there an image corresponding to the luminous 
body from which it was emitted, or the non-luminous one by 
which it was reflected. An abnormal case must be noted, 
where the phenomena of imperfect vision are produced by 
pressure upon the eyeball of the closed eye, by a blow upon 
the head, or by congestion of the brain. The relations of 
these several cases to perception proper will be discussed here- 
after; it suffices here to note the fact that each case presup- 
poses a real external excitant, however delusive the sensation. 



46 THE INTELLECT: 

The relations of vision to space have already been de- 
cisively marked. Color, if perceived at all, must necessari- 
ly be perceived as extended ; an unextended point is invisi- 
ble. There is, however, much reason to doubt whether the 
third dimension of space is given by the eye, as our esti- 
mates of distance by the eye are obviously acquired percep- 
tions ; and the phenomena of perspective prove that distance, 
i. e., the third dimension of space, is a judgment^ and not a 
percept. 

Sec. YII. — The Special Senses : the Touch. 

*[ I. Its Physiological Organs and Conditions. — In the 
sense of touch, we meet with a curious variation from the 
analogy of the other special senses, approximating it to-the 
character of a general sense, and going far toward justifying 
the theory that touch is a general sense, constituting it th.e 
underlying condition or principle of all the special senses. 
This peculiarity is found in the fact that it is not dependent, 
like the taste, upon a single organ ; or, like the sight or hear- 
ing, upon a pair of complementary organs ; but is found to 
inhere with more or less perfection in all parts of the sentient 
organism. It is true it is developed or manifested in a higher 
degree in some parts of the body than in others, as in the 
lips, and in the tips of the fingers, insomuch that the hands 
are popularly regarded as the peculiar organs of touch. 

The conditions of touch are few, and amount to little else 
than simple contact between the external object and the sub- 
jective organ. The resultant sensation of course varies with 
the nature, extent, and conditions of that contact, resulting in 
corresponding modifications in the sensation. 

^ II. Its Physiological and Psychical Products. — Any 
analysis of the physiological products of the sense of touch 
reveals the intimate relation between it and the muscular 
sense ; hence, unquestionably originated the fact that the 
two were uniformly confounded with each other by the ear- 
lier psychologists. Touch ordinarily gives, in addition to its 
own proper products, muscular products likewise, such as heat 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 4.7 

or cold, pleasure or pain, pressure or weight, etc., etc. Touch 
proper involves, physiologically: 1. Resistance; 2. Surface, 
and its more obvious conditions ; and 3. Form ; i. e., body 
in its true sense. Its psychical products must, from the pov- 
erty of our metaphysical language, be characterized by the 
same terms. Perhaps, however, the error lies in recognizing 
resistance, surface, and form, as we actually think them, as 
physiological products, since that term, strictly used, only 
expresses the actual physiological resultants of the contact 
of the external body with the organs of touch, which are, as 
usual, vibrations, or pulsations, of the tactual nerves. 

^ III. Its Relations to Externality. — The fact has already 
been noted that touch is regarded by many acute thinkers 
as the only sense by and through which, primarily^ we have 
real access to the external world, and that our knowledge of 
it through the other senses is secondary and derivative. 
While this cannot be conceded, it must be admitted that, in 
some respects, its testimony is more complete and decisive 
than that of any of its congeners. For example, its testimo- 
ny, alike to the form and the surface^ is alone decisive ; and 
there is room to question whether any other sense, alone, 
could give directly the third dimension of space. Fortu- 
nately, therefore, for man, it is the one sense that is never 
wholly wanting. 

Sec. YIII. — Comparative Functions of the Senses. 

^ I. Taste and Smell relate to the Chemical Properties 
of Matter. — In analyzing the comparative functions and 
values of the special senses, the first and most obvious fact 
that presents itself is their correlation to each other, and 
their special adaptation to the wants of man. Brought, as 
he necessarily is, and must be, in contact with matter, in all 
its varied forms and relations, it was indispensable that, by 
the aid of his special senses, guided by intelligence, he should 
be able to comprehend its nature and exhaust its values. 
This the special senses enable him to do, admirably supple- 
menting and aiding each other. Taste and smell occupy 



48 THE INTELLECT: 

themselves, almost exclusively, with the chemical properties 
of matter, i. e., with those relations and properties which fit 
it for the nourishment and support of the physical organism. 
They are, so to speak, divinely-appointed sentinels, placed 
as guards over the avenues of life, to prevent the intrusion 
of any hurtful or dangerous substances into the stomach and 
lungs. The subsidiary fact that they are sources of a high 
degree of. physical pleasure, may properly be noted as not 
wholly irrelevant. 

*f[ II. Touch relates specially to the Mechanical and 
Spatial Relations of Matter. — Touch is preeminently the 
organ through which the external world, as such, is known 
to us. It is the one sense which seems never wholly to fail 
man, even when its congeners are wanting. It enables him to 
explore, at once, the surface and forms of bodies, and to de- 
termine their mechanical relations, which no other single 
sense, perhaps, could do. It is true that sight gives us a 
secondary and acquired perception of the properties of the 
surfaces of bodies, through the effects of lights and shadows, 
but any one, familiar with the power of perspective in the 
hands of a good artist, knows how illusive its judgments fre- 
quently are. But, with all its advantages, touch is limited 
to bodies near at hand, or, in fact, in contact with the physi- 
cal organism, and left to it alone. Man's knowledge must 
ever be circumscribed to a narrow sphere. 

^ III. Sight and Hearing are adapted to the Spatial 
E-elations of Matter — Sight and hearing supplement touch 
by revealing the distant ; the one adapting itself to the phe- 
nomena of light, the other to a corresponding series of phe- 
nomena, independent of the light and the day. How im- 
mensely they extend the sphere of human knowledge will 
readily be conceived if we compare the condition of one born 
deaf and blind with our own. 

Sight is designed to give us, primarily^ color and its 
relations, and, secondarily^ extension, in its trinal form, 
though its third dimension is perhaps an acquired perception 
of sight. This is indicated by the phenomena of the stereo- 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 49 

scope, in wMcli a flat surface is made to represent perfectly- 
all the j^henomena of an actual landscape. Our estimate of 
distance by the eye is clearly an acquired perception, and is 
the result, in the main, of our unconscious education in 
childhood. It is, in fact, a judgment based upon lights and 
shadows, distinctness and indistinctness, apparent size, etc., 
and varies widely in different individuals. That men per- 
ceive objects, i. e., color, by the eye, as extended, has been 
already shown by the fact that an unextended point is invis- 
ible ; and is also further proved by the fact that, when two 
or more colors are present to the eye at once, they necessari- 
ly occupy diverse positions ; hence, occupy space. 

Hearing supplements the touch, not only as vision does, 
in the light or day, but in the night and the darkness also, 
taking cognizance of distant objects, by their peculiar action 
upon the organism, through the vibrations of a sonant me- 
dium. Its relations to space are far more obscure than 
those of sight or touch, and its indications of distance and 
direction are much less reliable. The beating of one's own 
heart, to the preternaturally-excited auditory nerve, may be- 
come the roaring of a distant railroad-train, and the hum of 
a beetle may be mistaken for the mutterings of a distant 
storm. Our perceptions of distance and direction, through 
the medium of sound, fall decisively into the class of ac- 
quired percepts, and are the results of education. 

The question, sometimes raised, whether a sixth special 
sense is possible, may be discounted as not only wholly fan- 
ciful but as wholly insoluble by any data open to us. That 
such a sense is inconceivable frcfLn our present stand-point 
is undeniable, but that it is therefore impossible is a noji 
sequitur. The limits of human conception are not identical 
with the limits of abstract possibility. 
3 



50 THE INTELLECT: 

CHAPTER III.— OBJECTS OF SENSE. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

General Analysis and Classification. 

At this juncture, an inquiry, not less difficult than impor- 
tant, presents itself to us, namely, What is the real object 
known in sensation ? An analysis of consciousness reveals 
three possible objects, which may be assumed, severally, to 
be the object known as extended, viz. : 

1. The external object, or excitant, as the book lying 
upon the table and seen by the eye. 

2. The material element in actual contact with the organ 
of sense, viz., the ray of light reflected from the book to 
the eve. 

3. The sensorium itself as excited by the contact of the 
external object. 

The first and second of these are truly objective, not 
only as referred to the soul, or true ego, but also to the soul 
as inhabiting the sensorium. With reference to the sense of 
touch, it is obvious that the two coincide ; while, with refer- 
ence to sight and hearing, they are diverse. 

The third, i. e., the sensorium as excited, may be termed, 
for the sake of distinction, a subjective object, or excitant ; 
though, as will be seen in the sequel, with respect to the 
soul, or true ego, it is not less really objective than the book 
or the table. 

Sec. I. — Objective Excitants. 

Our previous analysis of the objects known or cognized 
in sensation, indicated, with reference to some of the special 
senses, both a proximate and a remote object of sense, as the 
book lying upon the table, and the ray of light in contact 
with the retina of the eye. In the sense of touch the two 
coincide, and can be discriminated neither logically nor 
chronologically. It is obvious that the proximate object is 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 51 

the real excitant of the sensation, although perception al- 
most invariably ignores the proximate, and fastens upon the 
remote object. We are accustomed to say, " I perceive the 
book, the table, the chair," and not^ " I perceive the rays of 
light reflected by these objects ; " and it is not until the sci- 
entific consciousness emerges, that men begin to comprehend 
that their perception of the remote object is, in fact, medi- 
ated by the light transmitted from that object to the eye. 
There is another distinction that should be noted here, 
namely, between normal and abnormal excitants. 

i" I. Normal Excitants, or Objects. — These are such as 
act upon the organs of sense in accordance with their own 
proper laws, as light upon the eye, the vibrations of the air 
upon the ear, etc. These require no special consideration 
here, as their general nature has been sufficiently indicated 
in our analysis of the special senses. 

^ II. Abnormal Excitants, or Objects. — These are such 
as act upon the organs of sense outside of, or apart from, 
their ordinary laws ; as when ' the phenomena of vision are 
produced by a blow upon the head, or by pressure upon the 
eyeball. 

Sec. II. — Subjective Excitants. 

Under the head of subjective excitants may be included 
all those cases in which the sensorium itself, as an extended 
physical entity, becomes the exciting or active cause of sen- 
sation, as when the hand meets its fellow-hand, producing 
the phenomena of double sensation. Each hand is thus, 
alternately, subject and object^ active and passive. The sen- 
sorium itself thus becomes a legitimate object of perception 
through sensation ; and is, unquestionably, the first material 
object by and through which we attain to the perception of 
body, or matter, and its attributes. Double sensations, there- 
fore, as compared with single^ furnish the decisive test by 
which* we distinguish between the material self^ or organism^ 
and a material not-self., or the universe ; and this distinction 
is so marked and peculiar that it cannot fail to impress itself 



52 THE INTELLECT: 

upon the nascent intelligence of the infant, at a very early 
period of its unconscious education. Here, as in the parallel 
case of objective excitants, the distinction between normal 
and abnormal excitants must be distinctly marked. 

^ I. Kormal Excitants. — These are such as manifest 
themselves in consciousness under its ordinary laws, as when 
one hand meets the other in touch, or our limbs or members 
become objects of vision, etc. In some of these instances, 
as in the case of touch, the result is a double sensation ; in 
other cases, as in vision, the sensation is single. 

^ 11. AbEormal Excitants. — Under this head may be 
classed all such forms of sensation as originate in the physi- 
cal organism, but outside of, or apart from, the ordinary 
laws of sensation, as when the phenomena of vision are pro- 
duced by congestion of the optic nerve, or of sound by con- 
gestion of the auditory nerve. 

Sec. III. — The Real Object ki^ow:n- in SENSATioisr. 

The question now recurs, What is the real external object 
known in sensation, in the perception of which we attain to 
the knowledge of a real material world ? 

i" I. The Remote External Object, or Excitant, considered. 
— ^The fundamental conditions of perception limit it to the 
now and the here, and to imtnediate, and not to mediate, 
knowledge. It is obvious, therefore, that any remote exter- 
nal object of perception, as a book lying upon the table, or a 
bird singing in the tree, is not known immediately or pre- 
sentatively m itself, hut mediately or representatively ; that 
is, the book is mediated to the eye by the ray of light re- 
flected from it, and the bird by the vibrations of the atmos- 
phere. Our knowledge of the remote object of perception is, 
therefore, mediated by the law or principle of causation, i. e., 
we infer its existence, necessarily and immediately, from the 
phenomena of sensation of which we are conscious, while of 
the book and the bird themselves we have no direct con- 
sciousness. It is idle to say, as some have done, that the soul 
is face to face with the remote excitant of vision, however 



ITS FIKST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 53 

thoronghly it may be assured of its existence. This is 
shown, conclusively, by the phenomena of abnormal exci- 
tants, both objective and subjective, as well as by the well- 
known phenomena of double vision, in which two objects are 
distinctly seen, while but a single object is present to the 
eye. In all these cases, the abnormal excitant is real and 
objective to the organ of sense; for a drop of congested 
blood in the optic nerve is as really foreign or external to the 
sensorium proper as the book lying upon the table. In such 
abnormal sensations, the error is not in the assertion of a 
real objective cause, or excitant, but in the determination of 
the actual individuality of that cause, which the mind, under 
its own necessary laws, projects outward into space. It is 
right in asserting an objective material cause, it is onl]/ 
wrong when it seeks to localize that cause. The remote ex- 
ternal object is not, therefore, and cannot be, the real objec- 
tive element immediately known in sensation. 

^ II. The Proximate External Object, or Excitant con- 
sidered. — The question, when referred to this element of the 
problem, becomes at once more complicated and more diffi- 
cult; for it more nearly accords in its relations with the 
obvious conditions of immediate or presentative knowledge, 
which require the object Imown to be face to face with the 
ego, or percipient subject. Yet it is obvious that even here 
there is a link in the chain hopelessly wanting. Sir William 
Hamilton has indeed doubtfully attempted to supply this 
missing link hj the hypothesis, that the soul is every- 
where present, completely and perfectly, in each special or- 
gan of sense, in the tips of the fingers, the retina of the eye, 
etc., etc., and that it perceives at precisely that point of the 
sensorium which is in contact with the external object. But 
this hypothesis is not only unsupported by any single known 
fact of consciousness or physiology, but it is in direct con- 
tradiction of well-ascertained principles and facts of cerebral 
physiology, which determine the fact that the brain is the 
seat or organ of all true mental action ; and such, unques- 
tionably, are the phenomena of sensation proper. Our cog- 



54: THE INTELLECT: 

nizance, therefore, of the proximate as well as of the remote 
excitant or object of sensation is, and must be, mediated by 
the law or canon of causation ; and it is not, and cannot be, 
the real object known immediately 2,\i^ presentatively in sen- 
sation. 

^ III. The Sensorium itself considered as an Excitant. — 
If we pass now to the consideration of the sensorium itself 
considered as an excitant, and as a physical entity apart from 
the true ego, or conscious self, we shall find that the difficul- 
ties which attend the preceding hypotheses, measurably at 
least, disappear, while it fills all the necessary conditions of 
the cognition of a true material body filling space, or possess- 
ing extension. 

It is obvious, in the outset, that the sensorium, considered 
as an object of sense and an excitant of sensation, is properly 
discriminated from self, or the conscious ego, and becomes as 
really a part of the true not-self, non-ego, or material uni- 
verse, for the time being, as a book or stone ; and is, more- 
over, as good a type of body, or matter, as such. At the 
same time, it is equally undeniable that it comes within the 
sphere of consciousness, in a sense and to a degree that no 
other material body whatever can do. While, therefore, we 
may well hesitate to affirm that the soul, or conscious self, is 
face to face with the book lying on the table, or with the 
apple grasped in the hand, there is no such difficulty in con- 
ceiving it to be face to face with the sensorium in which it 
dwells and which it vitalizes, and through which it is con- 
stantly exerting its activity on the material world. In fact, 
the real difficulty, at first thought, would seem to be, to 
imagine ourselves not to have immediate consciousness of 
this term. or factor in the complex called sensation and per- 
ception. 

If, now, the question be raised. How does the soul cog- 
nize matter or body, as an extended entity, through its con- 
sciousness of the sensorium as at once excited and excitant? 
the answer would seem to be that, in the phenomena of double 
sensation, as when one hand meets the other, the soul can 



ITS FIRST MOYEMENT— PERCEPTION. 55 

but discriminate between the two sensations. In tbus dis- 
criminating, it necessarily localizes them, and at the same 
time, by appropriating both to itself, i. e., to the sensorium, 
it comes, vaguely at least, to the consciousness of that senso- 
rium as a body possessing extension. Any solution of the 
problem must needs be hypothetical, since the actual proc- 
ess is hopelessly hidden from us by the veil of infancy — 
that no-man's land of thought, which defies all our attempts 
at actual exploration. It follows, therefore, that the senso- 
rium must be conceived as lying within the sphere of con- 
sciousness as a material, extended, physical entity. 

Again, consciousness of a sensation presupposes, necessa- 
rily, consciousness of self, or the ego, as affected, and no 
form of words can be devised that will express the actual 
facts of consciousness, which does not, both implicitly and 
explicitly, involve the assertion of a consciousness of self as 
affected. Every admissible form of expression, in such 
cases, asserts or affirms three things at least, viz. : 1. Self or 
the ego ; 2. The existence of the sensation ; and 3. The rela- 
tion existing between self and the sensation. The use of the 
personal pronoun "jT" in all languages, in such cases, is de- 
cisive on this point. To assert, as some have done, that we 
are conscious of the sensation, but not of ourselves as expe- 
riencing the sensation, is to use words without meaning ; is, 
in fact, to assert or affirm an impersonal sensation, whatever 
that may be. The sophism sometimes interposed, that mind, 
at 7'est or asleep^ is not conscious of itself, is utterly nugatory, 
for the mind is, confessedly, not at rest nor asleep in sensation. 
The question is not, whether an ijiactive consciousness takes 
cognizance of itself, but whether an active consciousness 
takes cognizance of its actio7is only^ or of itself as acting. 

The problem, transferred to the external world, would 
be, Do we perceive motion pure and simple, or do we per- 
ceive this or that body moving? To the latter question 
there can be but one rational answer: The perception of 
motion, apart from the perception of some body moving, is 
impossible. So the consciousness of a sensation, apart from 



56 THE INTELLECT: 

the consciousness of self as experiencing the sensation, is 
also impossible. The terms are strict correlatives, and can- 
not be known separately or apart. The conclusion, there- 
fore, is irresistible, that we do have immediate or present- 
ative knowledge, not only of the true self, or ego, in sensa- 
tion, but also of that self as inhabiting and vitalizing the 
sensorium, considered as a material entity and an integral 
part of the material universe. 

^ IV. Mind active in Sensation. — The fact should per- 
haps be noted discretely here, that the mind is essentially 
active, not only in perception proper, but in sensation proper 
also. Here, however, the distinction must be broadly taken 
between the physiological and psychical processes, and the 
fact, moreover, be distinctly remembered, that sensation is 
strictly a physical phenomenon. In perception proper, the 
fact is still more marked and obtrusive in its character ; for 
in it the mind reacts upon the materials furnished in sensa- 
tion, and is not only essentiaUy^ hut wholly, active. In pass- 
ing, the fact should be noted, that the opinion sometimes 
entertained of the passivity of the soul in sensation, doubt- 
less originates in the failure to distinguish between its physi- 
ological and psychical elements. 

Sec. IV. — Are SExsATioisrs ever false or unreal? 

A question arises, at this point, that merits at least a 
passing notice, viz. : Are our sensations ever false or un- 
real? In the light of preceding discussions, this question 
may be answered unhesitatingly in the negative. In the 
case of phantasms, or illusions of the sight, the exciting 
cause may be concussion or congestion of the optic nerve, 
instead of a normal external object ; but none the less is 
there a real, material cause of the phenomenon. In other 
words, the sensation on the one hand is real, and, on the 
other, there is a real, external exciting cause of that real 
sensation. The only error involved is in the assignment of 
its true cause. The abnormal relation between the cause 
and the sensation depends upon a well-known physiological 



ITS FIRST MOYEMENT— PERCEPTION. 57 

law, that any special nerve, when excited either normally or 
abnormally, can only respond in the one way peculiar to 
itself. Hence, the optic nerve, when excited by compression 
or concussion, responds with the phenomena of vision ; and 
so of the rest. The conclusion, therefore, is decisive, that 
sensations, as such, are never false or unreal, although our 
perceptions, based upon them, may be. 



CHAPTER lY.— EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 

Sec. I. — Development of the Senses in Ineanct. 

The gradual development of the senses in infancy has 
been casually alluded to more than once, and yet it demands 
at least a passing notice here. The whole process is so 
veiled from exact observation by the mists that hang around 
that no-man's land of life and thought, that any attempt to 
investigate it is almost purely hypothetical. The data of 
the problem amount to little more than these : Given the 
potential organs of an utterly helpless sensorium, and the 
potential faculties of an equally helpless mind ; required, the 
order, law, or principle, of their evolution. It is obvious 
that here there is room for an endless variety of hypotheses, 
from the most abject materialism to the most extreme tran- 
scendentalism, while any true experimentum crucis whatso- 
ever seems to be unattainable. It is therefore idle, in a 
treatise like this, designed rather for a hand-book for stu- 
dents than as a guide to experts, to enter upon the discus- 
sion at all. 

Sec. II. — Education op the Special Senses. 

The subsidiary or derivative question of the proper edu- 
cation of the special senses is one of the most interesting 
and fruitful in the whole range of the science of mind, since 
it connects itself with all the practical interests of our daily 
lives. It must suffice here, however, to note the fact of the 
seemingly-limitless extent to which the senses may be edu- 



58 THE INTELLECT: 

cated. It were as easy as it were idle to fill page after 
page with illustrations, drawn from actual life, of remark- 
able perfection and power, on the part of individuals in 
the use of the special senses. It suffices to refer to the deli- 
cacy of touch and hearing in the blind; of sight in the 
artist, the artisan, and sailor ; of taste in the gourmand, etc. 
The thoughtful student will find abundant illustrations in 
the sphere of his own personal reading and observation, ren- 
dering it needless to quote any here. 

m 

Sec. III. — Limitation" of the Spheke of Sensatioi^. 

In the light of preceding discussions, it is hardly necessa- 
ry to add here discretely, that the revelations of the senses 
are limited strictly to the properties or attributes of matter. 
ISTone of them reach to or grasp substance, i. e., matter per 
se. Whatever knowledge man has, or can have, of that, 
must come from intuition, or the reflective reason, or both. 



PERCEPTIOI: ITS SECOND ELEMENT. 

INTUITION. 

CHAPTER I.— I^ATURE, VALIDITY, AND OLASSIFIOATIOi^ 
OF THE Il!^TUITION"S. 

Sec. I. l!^ATUEE OF IlSTTUITIOIS^. 

•[ I. Discrimination of the Intuition from the Sensation 
in the Percept. — Our previous analyses, if they have not 
wholly failed of their design, have marked with some degree 
of precision the essential nature and limitations of sensation, 
and have indicated at least the line of demarcation between 
it and intuition in the synthesis of the percept. Sensation, as 
we have seen, gives certain attributes of matter, as resist- 
ance by the touch, color by the. eye, etc., etc. ; but space, 
time, and cause, and other essential forms or categories under 
which we conceive matter, are neither sensations nor mere 
products or resultants of any single sense, nor yet are they 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 59 

complex resultants of all the senses combined. It will not 
do to say, as some have done, that v/e come first to the con- 
ception (or cognition rather) of this or that particular body ; 
and then, by abstracting the body, come to the conception 
of space, as the residuum left after such abstraction ; for we 
can neither know nor conceive body apart from or prior to 
a conception of space as a condition precedent of body. ISTor 
will it do to say, in virtue of the succession of sensations, 
percepts, or events in our consciousness, that we are able, by 
abstraction, to remove the concrete entities constituting the 
succession, and thus arrive at the conception of simple dura- 
tion or time in its ultimate form. We can cognize succes- 
sion only on condition that we simultaneously cognize dura- 
tion or time, the essential condition precedent to the exist- 
ence of succession. So, by parity of reasoning, it will not do 
to say that, in virtue of the affection of the retina of the eye, 
I see a book lying upon the table, apart from the law of 
causation, which compels me to look beyond myself for an 
efficient cause of the subjective phenomena of which I am 
conscious. Space, time, and cause, are the products of no 
single sensation as a sensation merely, and cannot be evolved 
directly from any complex of sensations whatsoever ; they 
must, therefore, be referred to the intuitive power of the con- 
sciousness, which evolves them a priori on the occasion of a 
sensation consciously experienced. 

^ II. Definition of Intuition. — To know, must rationally 
be assumed to be of the nature of mind, as an entity distinct 
from matter ; and it is no more wonderful or incomprehensible 
that the mind, or soul, should think, feel, and will, than it is 
that matter should possess its own peculiar corresponding at- 
tributes. Intuition may be defined, with sufficient accuracy for 
our purposes, " to he the mind''s power of originating neces- 
sary concepts and primitive truths^ on the occurrence 0/ proper 
occasions for calling forth its energies of thought y It is true 
that the sensational school of psychologists have sought to 
resolve every form of thought and every element of percep- 
tion into mere transformed sensations ; and yet it is far more 



60 THE INTELLECT: 

difficult for us actually to conceive that the vibrations of a 
ray of light are transformed into what we know, in conscious- 
ness, as a thought, than it is to conceive that to know is of 
the essence of mind, just as to fill space is of the essence 
of matter. 

Another thought is pertinent here, namely : men some- 
times deceive themselves and others hy the use of words 
without meaning, or words to which they themselves attach 
no definite or intelligible meaning ; and the thoughtful stu- 
dent "s^dl], with difficulty, avoid the suspicion that this at- 
tempted identification of perception and thought with mere 
transformed sensations is a striking illustration of this un- 
worthy process. This much is certain, it is absolutely in- 
cumbent upon sensational psychologists to define precisely : 
1. What they mean by a transformed sensation ; 2. By 
what process the transformation is effected, whether chemi- 
cal, mechanical, or spiritual ; 3. Whether any new element 
whatsoever is added in the process, and, if so, what ; and 
4. Whether the transformed sensation or thought is simply 
an imponderabU material element, or whether it has changed 
its whole nature. These questions have never yet been fairly 
met and answered, and, until they are, it is needless to add, 
the doctrines of sensualism are entitled to no respect. 

^ III. Potential and Actual Knowledge, — Psychologists 
stumble needlessly, sometimes, over difficulties which origi- 
nate solely in their own neglect to distinguish between po- 
tential and actual knowledge. Locke demonstrated the fal- 
sity of the dogma of " innate ideas ^"^ as he conceived it ; but 
his argument is wortbless the moment any accurate discrim- 
ination is made between actual and potential knowledge, and 
our intuitive concepts and primitive judgments are properly 
classed under the head of potential knowledge, which the 
soul makes actual, by its own inherent energies, on the occa- 
sion of an appropriate sensation. It is easy to show, as 
Locke has done, that " man does not come into the world 
with a stock of elaborately -worded and classified concepts 
and primitive judgments ; " but the fact remains that our 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 61 

actual processes of thought are utterly incomprehensible, if 
we do not recognize the hypothesis, " that to know is of the 
essence of mind; " and that the soul, therefore, possesses the 
power to originate these a priori concepts and axiomatic 
truths. 

Sec. II. — Validity of Intuition. 

The question here naturally arises. Are the intuitive pro- 
cesses of mind valid, and are the results reached trustwor- 
thy ? Or, in other words. What are the guarantees of intui- 
tive truth ? These questions necessitate a consideration of : 

^ I. The Modes of Truth, — Truth presents itself under 
two forms in proportion, first, as we consider it with refer- 
ence to self, or the ego ; and, second, with respect to not-self, 
or the universe. It becomes necessary, therefore, to consider 
the nature and relations of the two forms. 

1. Subjective truth. — A proposition is subjectively true 
which is based upon the actual percepts of a human soul 
evolved in accordance with its necessary laws of thought. For 
example, an intelligent gentleman once said to the writer: 
" I saw a strange thing to-day as I was riding on the prairie. 
Off to my right, at no great distance, I saw distinctly two 
gentleman riding toward me on a road that joined the one I 
was following, some distance ahead. I looked at them care- 
fully, to see if I could recognize either. My attention was 
then called in another direction for an instant, and, when I 
looked again, I saw but one man. When I met him, he as- 
sured me that he had had no companion, and there was no 
way in which his fellow, if he had had one, could have disap- 
peared. The second man was seen as distinctly as the first, 
and yet was simply an optical illusion." The primary state- 
ment, " I saw two men, " was subjectively true, but, as after- 
ward appeared, was objectively false ; nor are such cases rare, 
although their philosophy is but imperfectly comprehended. 
Any conclusion evolved, therefore, from apparently real data, 
in accordance with our necessary laws of thought, may be re- 
garded as subjectively true. 



62 THE INTELLECT: 

2. Objective truth. — This consists or inheres in the exact 
correspondence of our subjective concepts and beliefs with the 
actual facts of the external world, or with reality. It is ob- 
vious, therefore, as in the example noted above, that the two 
do not always coincide. Had my informant, in the case 
noted above, instead of simply turning his head for an in- 
stant, actually turned and rode away without looking behind 
him, he would never have suspected the optical illusion. 
The question, then, is to the last degree important : " How 
shall the accordance of subjective and objective truth be 
determined ? " An unreal importance and significance are-, 
however, sometimes given to it, by confounding simple objec- 
tive truth with absolute truth. The latter has, and can have, 
in its strict sense, no standing in 2^ finite mind, but is an ex- 
clusive attribute of absolute mind, i. e., of God. 

^ n. The Criteria of Intuitive Truths. — It is obvious, in 
the outset, for reasons already noted, that no absolute cri- 
teria of truth or falsehood are possible, else were absolute 
truth possible to man. So far as the senses are concerned, 
the test of truth is necessarily the concurrent testimony of 
two or more special senses, where the subject matter is 
amenable to more than one of them. "Where but one special 
sense is available, its testimony may be strengthened and 
confirmed, in the individual instance, by varying the condi- 
tions of the suspected or tested sensation, as the gentleman 
did, in the case noted, by a repetition again and again of the 
act of vision, and thus more certain results may be reached. 
At times, also, the testimony of sense may be confirmed or 
corrected, a priori^ by the reason, where sufficient indepen- 
dent data exist for its legitimate action. Failing the possi- 
bility of both these methods, the fact must be remembered 
that the sensation itself, even in such cases as that of double 
vision noted above, is real, and that the error, where error 
does in fact exist, is in the determination and assignment of 
the real objective excitant, or cause of the sensation. The 
possible element of error involved in sensation does not, in 
the slightest degree, invalidate our perception of an objective 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION". 63 

cause of our subjectiye sensations, but only the correctness 
of our actual determination .of that cause. 

Intuitive truths distinctively considered, in order to their 
rational acceptance, must possess two attributes, or character- 
istics, viz. : first, universality ; and, second, necessity. 

1. Universality. — This attribute, as a criterium of intui- 
tive truths or primitive judgments, amounts precisely to this, 
namely : any concept or truth, in order that it may challenge 
a legitimate place as a veritable intuition of the soul, must 
meet with universal recognition and acceptance among men 
as men, when intelligibly presented to the individual con- 
sciousness. For example, if any tribe or race of men could 
be found who possessed a knowledge or concept of body, but 
no corresponding knowledge or concept of space, the latter 
must at once be discounted as an accidental, and not an in- 
tuitive, concept. 

2. Necessity. — As a criterium of intuitive truth, this in- 
volves the conception of the impossibility of conceiving the 
opposite, i. e., the contradictory proposition ; for example, I 
not only conceive it to be true that things equal to the same 
thing are equal to each other, but I find myself utterly 
unable to conceive the contrary to be possible, and would 
turn away in disgust from the folly and self-conceit of any 
one who should attempt to prove the contrary. 

Any proposition uniting in itself these two marks, or at- 
tributes, must be accepted as an intuitive truth. To cavil at 
it, or reject it, were simply to stultify consciousness, and un- 
settle all the laws and conditions of thought. Any doubt, 
feigned or felt, under such conditions, must be invalid, since 
the existence of such doubt can only be known through the 
testimony of that consciousness whose necessary processes 
and products it proposes to impeach — a proceeding utterly 
inadmissible, since no legal maxim is better established than 
that " a man shall not discredit his own witness." 

The whole problem of the relations of subjective to objec- 
tive truth, on the one hand, and to absolute truth on the 
other, may be summed up in this simple statement : abso- 



64 THE INTELLECT: 

lute truth as such, is impossible to man, since it lies without 
or beyond the sphere of the finite-^objective truth, based upon 
the necessary laws of thought, and the nature of mind, is 
possible to man, and our knowledge of the external world, 
as a fact, is just as real as our knowledge of self, or the ego ; 
and, in the perfect synthesis of subjective and objective truth, 
human knowledge culminates. 

Sec. III. — Classificatiois' of Intuitiok^s. 

Previous discussions have already shadowed forth the 
classification of intuitions, that must here be made, discretely 
and decisively, into the two general categories of — 1. Intui- 
tive concepts; and, 2. Intuitive beliefs or primitive judg- 
ments ; which must first be evolved discretely, and then care- 
fully investigated. 

% I. Intuitive Concepts. — Under this general head must 
be included : 

1. The category/ of being, including the dual concepts 
of self and not-self, i. e., man and the universe. 

2. The category of limitation, including the concepts 
of space (extension), of time (protension), and of cause (in- 
tension). 

3. The category of relation, including the concepts of 
the true, the beautiful, and the good. To these must be 
added, finally, the resultant concepts of man, nature, and 
God ; or the finite, the infinite, and their relations to each 
other. 

*if II. Intuitive Truths or Primitive Judgments. — Under 
this general head must be included : 

1. The laws of thought, or the canons of logic. 

2. The axioms of mathematics ; and, 

3. The categorical imperative of conscience, viz. : " I 
ought to do this, or I ought not to do that." 

All of these, as will appear in the sequel, respond fully to 
the criteria of intuitive truths. 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 65 



CHAPTER II.— INTUITIYE IDEAS, OR PRIMITIVE CON-- 

CEPTS. 

Section I. — The Categoey of Being. 

Our previous analysis of the content of a typical percept 
evolved, immediately and necessarily,- the category of being 
in its twofold forms of self and not-self, i. e., the subjective 
and objective elements in the percept. It now becomes 
necessary to examine them discretely and exhaustively, in 
order to. the evolution of their generic values as elements of 
thought. The general method of the co-evolution of these 
related concepts has been, perhaps, sufficiently illustrated, so 
that we pass at once to consider them severally. 

^ I. Self, or the Personality. — The typical percept, as we 
have shown, distinctly involves, or includes, implicitly but 
necessarily, an affirmation of personal existence, and not 
obscurely of personal identity also ; each of which requires 
discrete investigation. 

1. Personal existence. — It does not require any extended 
argument to prove that personal existence is presupposed in 
every act of consciousness, and is an indemonstrable first 
truth underlying every other truth. Descartes's famous 
" Cogito^ ergo sum " was not, fairly interpreted, an attempt 
to demonstrate the fact of existence by the fact of thought, 
but a simple enunciation of the truth here propounded, that 
the fact of conscious personal existence underlies the possi- 
bility to man of all other possible facts whatsoever; and is 
an implicit^ if not an explicit, postulate of every affirmation 
which it is possible for him to make. In this case, to deny is 
to affirm the thing denied. I may conceive a time in past 
duration when, personally, I did not exist ; I may conceive 
spaces where I do not now exist; and I may conceive a 
time future, in which I shall not exist ; but I ca7inot conceive 
myself as non-existent now and here. The postulate of per- 
sonal existence is, therefore, fundamental, and, so far as any 
thing human may be, absolute. 



QQ THE INTELLECT: 

2. Personal identity/. — This is likewise an implicit con- 
dition precedent of perception, though not, like personal ex- 
istence, of strictly the Jl7^st or topical percept. Man must 
come to the consciousness of personal existence at least once 
and again, before he can come to the consciousness of per- 
sonal identity, whose essential conditions necessitate two or 
more disparate acts of consciousness, and its essence consists 
in the identification of the subjective personality in these 
disparate processes. At this point it becomes necessary to 
distinguish and classify the diverse forms of identity known 
to us in the actual experiences of life, and analyze their rela- 
tions to true personal identity : 

(a) Physical identity^ or the identity of the essential par- 
ticles of matter constituting a body, as a rock or a crystal. 

ip) Organic identity^ or the identity of physical organ- 
ism, as in the plant, tree, or animal, in which, notwithstand- 
ing constant change in the integrant particles of matter, the 
organic unity of the body as a complex whole remains ; and, 

(c) Spiritual identity^ or the unity of consciousness, 
which is wholly independent of physical identity, and, in fact, 
coexists with organic identity, but yet seems to be indepen- 
dent of it. Our concept and corresponding affirmation of 
personal identity is, at first, a confused affirmation of the 
second and third forms — not, however, distinctly discrimi- 
nating against the first, which subsequent scientific researches 
exclude. This fact suggests a general remark, as pertinent 
here as anywhere, that we must not fall into the error of as- 
suming that either our intuitive concepts or primitive judg- 
ments are, in the early stages of consciousness, either clearly 
defined or sharply discriminated from other kindred forms of 
thought ; this process takes place only at a later period in 
the evolution of the reflective or philosophic consciousness ; 
and this fact alone gives color of probability to the objec- 
tions of the sensational school of psychologists, to the theory 
of intuitive knowledge, namely, that " children and savages 
not only do not possess these intuitive ideas and judgments, 
but that they are unable even to comprehend them when 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 67 

formally stated." It is precisely in this formal statement 
that the fallacy lies. If they would refute the theory fairly, 
it is incumbent upon them to shovy some tribe or race of men 
to whom these concepts and judgments in their concrete^ en- 
veloped^ or practical form, and not in their developed or ab- 
stract philosophical form, are unknown. This they never yet 
have done, and it is safe to say will never be foolish enough 
to attempt to do. The child or the savage is as thoroughly 
conscious of his own personal existence and personal identity 
as the philosopher, though he may be utterly unable to ana- 
lyze his consciousness or define his thought ; or even to com- 
prehend it when defined by another in the abstract terms of 
science. All attempts to account for the existence of this 
implicit faith in his own personal identity which is character- 
istic of man as man, by referring it to experience^ association 
of ideas ^ etc., etc., ignores the obtrusive fact that it is itself 
a condition precedent alike of the memory and experience 
which are supposed to originate it. 

^ II. Not-Self, or the Universe. — ^Every percept, as we 
have seen, involves the correlated concepts of self as the per- 
cipient subject, and not-self, or the universe, as the object per- 
ceived ; known, not separately and independently, but simul- 
taneously, in the synthesis of perception. Analysis of this 
complex reveals : 

1. The essential distinction between the subjective and the 
objective in human thought. The simplest form of the affir- 
mation of a typical percept clearly involves this philosophi- 
cal distinction. For example, if I say, " I perceive a book," 
the personal pronoun " I " is the direct representative of the 
subjective personality ; while the book, with equal directness, 
represents not-self, or the objective universe. 

2. Man's physical nature, i. e., the sensorium, is both sub- 
jective and objective. Viewed in 'certain relations, it is, as 
it were, absorbed into the true self, or ego, and is discrimi- 
nated from the universe. Viewed in other relations, and more 
especially from the philosophical stand-point, it is rightfully 
discriminated from self, or the true ego, and is, as a true ob- 



68 THE INTELLECT: 

jective element, identified with not-self, or the universe ; and 
it is in this identification of our physical nature with not-self, 
or the universe, that the soul, or true ego, attains to an im- 
mediate knowledge of matter and its essential attributes. 
This thought leads us, finally, to consider — 

3. The real objective element known in sensation. This 
has already been shown to be, not the remote object of sense, 
as the book lying upon the table, nor yet the proximate ob- 
ject, as the ray of light acting upon the retina of the eye ; but 
the sensorium itself, as excited by the impact of the ray of 
light, and responding by its own subjective affections, pro- 
ducing in the soul, or true ego, the phenomena of a genuine 
psychical sensation and perception. Our complex physical 
and spiritual natures, thus strangely and perfectly united, 
enable us to grasp, in the unity of consciousness, with equal 
facility, both the physical and spiritual worlds ; equally allied 
to each, consciousness stands face to face with both. 

^ III. Substance and Attribute. — Subsidiary to the cate- 
gory of being, i. e., to the concepts of self and not-self, and 
as a condition precedent to the rational comprehension of 
either, there arise the correlated concepts of substance and 
attributes, taken originally, in a confused general sense, to 
represent the distinction between the properties or accidents 
of an entity, and the entity itself. Through the' senses, it is 
obvious that the mind cognizes, primarily, only specific qual- 
ities. For example, an apple is presented to me: by the 
sight, I cognize its colors, etc. ; by the smell, its odor ; by 
the touch, its weight ; by the taste, its savor, etc. ISTow, if 
this be assumed, for the moment, to be 2, first or typical sen- 
sation, the questions would at once arise : " Are these sepa- 
rate sensations independent of each other, i. e., independent 
entities, or are they dependent^ inhering in a common substra- 
tum or substance ? " The answer, as a matter of fact, univer- 
sally given by the intelligence of the infant, is always, neces- 
sarily and universally, hence intuitively^ that the special sen- 
sations represent special attributes or properties of a common 
entity or substance. 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. (59 

In its subsequent reflective movements, consciousness 
idealizes these correlative concepts, and postulates them as 
the symbols, respectively, of phenomenal and real existence. 
The same necessity of thought which compels the soul to 
unite the several attributes known in sensation in a complex 
unity called body, matter, or substance, constrains it, at a 
later period in the development of the reflective conscious- 
ness, to seek, underneath and beyond the diversity of chan- 
ging or phenomenal existence, for an unchanging essence or 
substance. 

The category of substance and attribute, as present to the 
consciousness of man, is dual, and not singular, involving the 
perception or affirmation of — 

1. Spiritual substance^ as represented in consciousness by 
the true self, or ego, as contradistinguished from both the 
physical organism and the external world. This conscious- 
ness postulates as of its own essence, discriminating it as an 
entity, sui generis, whose phenomena are : 1. Thought ; 2. Feel- 
ing ; and 3. Volition, which need only be named here. And — 

2. 3faterial substance, or matter, represented in con- 
sciousness by the physical organism as discriminated from 
the true self, or ego, by its own peculiar attributes, such as 
extension, impenetrability, etc., etc., whose proper discussion 
belongs elsewhere. 

Sec. II. — The Categoky of Limitation. 

In the synthesis of the complex typical percept, it will be 
remembered that our analysis revealed, not merely the cate- 
gory of being, but that it revealed it under the conditions of 
space, time, and causation, or the category of limitation, 
which must now, in turn, be discretely considered. 

% I. Space, or Extension. — ]^o concept or idea whatsoever 
is more universally and obtrusively present to the conscious- 
ness of man than that of space, involving at once the local- 
izing of being and of action. The question " Where ? " is 
ever upon our lips, when any thing, either act or event, is 
named ; and, as it is with us to-day, so has it ever been with 



70 TEE INTELLECT: 

man as man. "Whence, then, comes this concept, and what 
is its real nature ? 

1. It is not an object of sense. — "We cannot see, hear, 
touch, taste, or smell it, nor yet any of its attributes, for body 
or matter is in no sense an attribute of space. Its sole re- 
lations to it are (a), that it occupies space; and (5), that 
it furnishes the occasion upon which the soul, intuitively and 
necessarily, affirms the existence of space as a condition pre- 
cedent of the concept of being. 

2. It is not a mere abstraction from the idea or concept 
of body. — The simple and sufficient proof of this assertion is 
found in the fact that a conception of space is, as before 
stated, an essential condition precedent of the conception of 
body. The truth obviously is, that the mind of the infant, 
confusedly but decisively, comes to the perception or concep- 
tion of body in space ; and not, first, to that of body and then 
of space, or vice 'cersa. Our primitive percepts and. concepts 
are, alike, concrete and confused^ and not discrete and deter- 
oninate. 

3. Space is not an entity^ but a condition precedent of 
being. — This statement has already been incidentally made, 
but requires discrete enunciation here, as it has been strongly 
contested. To conceive space as an entity, as some have 
done, is to confuse and contradict all our rational concepts 
of entity or being. To assume, with Kant, that it is a sim- 
ple formal condition of thought, and not of being, is to deny 
its existence altogether. The only remaining alternative is 
the affirmation of space, not as itself an entity or being, but 
as a condition precedent of being. We can conceive a time 
when being was not ; may imagine a time, perhaps, when 
being shall cease ; but we can neither conceive nor imagine a 
time when space was not. "We may abstract body in 
thought and leave space, but we cannot, in turn, abstract 
space and leave not-space. The abstraction of space, in other 
words, is unthinkable ; it is, therefore, to man a true abso- 
lute. 

1" n. Time, Protension. — Space presents itself, under a 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. Yl 

trinal form, as possessing three dimensions ; time, its insep- 
arable congener, is conceived as possessing but one. It is 
the unceasing flow of measureless duration, marked from the 
stand-point of the human consciousness. Its affinity to space, 
or extension, is indicated by the cognate word protension, 
occasionally applied to it. Time and duration are sometimes 
discriminated from each other, and the word time applied 
exclusively to that portion of measured duration which is 
marked by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and repre- 
sented by days, months, and years ; while the word duration 
is reserved for the measureless flow of time, which we call 
eternity. 

That time, like space, is a universal, necessary, and there- 
fore intuitive concept, needs but little proof. The attempt to 
derive it from our experience of successive acts of conscious- 
ness, fails, from the simple fact that the idea of succession is 
impossible apart from the conception of time, in which such 
succession may occur. IN'or is it, for like reasons, in any 
sense an abstraction from the idea of succession; for any 
attempt to conceive the residuum of such an act of abstrac- 
tion, either positively or negatively, must simply result in 
the conception of self as the underlying substratum of the 
consciously perceived phenomena. 

Time, like space, is not an entity, but a condition prece- 
dent of being and succession, i, e., of motion or action. 
Like space, it is to man, so far as any concept can be, both 
infinite and absolute ; and its non-existence is, therefore, un- 
thinkable. 

•f III. Cause, Intension. — 1. Analysis of the concept. — 
The same perverse ingenuity which led Kant to reduce space 
and time to the condition or rank of subjective forms or con- 
ditions of thought, has led to the denial of the real or objec- 
tive validity of the category of causation, reducing that also 
to a mere condition of thought ; and we. are assured that we 
know and can know nothing of causation proper, and that 
that which we denominate causation is nothing more than 
the invariable relations of actual succession and resemblance 



72 THE INTELLECT: 

that we perceive between objects and events ; and that the 
variableness of this order, in the one series of cases, and its 
invariableness in others, leads ns naturally to the assumption 
of a causal nexus or link in the latter case, which necessitates 
the consequent or effect. Causation, on this hypothesis, is a 
mere resultant of invariableness of succession, i. e., of ante- 
cedence and consequence between any two events whatso- 
ever. On this hypothesis, which explicitly denies the legiti- 
macy of any assumption of power in the antecedent to pro- 
duce the consequent, it is obvious that the strength of our 
belief in the causal nexus must be in direct proportion to the 
frequency and the invariableness of the succession. This, 
however, is not true, for no successions known to man are 
so frequent or so invariable as those of day and night, sum- 
mer and winter, life and death ; yet no man, woman, or 
child, ever mistook the antecedent for a cause, and the con- 
sequent for an effect, in these successions, nor in a hundred 
others that might be named ; while in numberless instances 
of successions, occurring but once in the experience of the 
individual, he unhesitatingly affirms the antecedent to be the 
cause, and the consequent the effect, with a faith that is ab- 
solute. In the face of such facts, it is idle for any man to 
insist upon such an hypothesis. The truth is, it cannot be 
stated and sustained by formal argument, by its most earnest 
advocates, in any form of words which does not implicitly 
deny it, and the man who professes to believe it stultifies his 
faith by every voluntary act of his life. 

It should, perhaps, be added, discretely, that the con- 
cept of causation is not an induction from experience, as it 
is itself a condition precedent of all experience, for it is only 
in virtue of the law of causation that we come to the knowl- 
edge of either the proximate or remote external object of 
sensation. The conclusion is therefore irresistible, that, as a 
strictly unii:ersal and necessary concept of humanity, it is 
intuitive^ and must be classed among the primitive affirma- 
tions of consciousness. 

2. Real import of the canon of causation, — This has 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 73 

"been variously stated by different authors. It may, perhaps, 
be announced with sufficient distinctness as follows, viz. : 
" Every eve^it must have an adequate or sufficient cause." 
This avoids at once and decisively the sophism that the 
canon of causation postulates an infinite succession of 
causes, and rationally predicates a first or uncaused cause of 
all things ; that is not an event^ and therefore does not pos- 
tulate a cause, and is, consequently, not an exception to the 
universality of the canon of causation. It may, therefore, 
safely be regarded as absolute within its own proper sphere. 

A question has sometimes been raised in reference to the 
unity or multiplicity of causes acting in the production of a 
given effect ; and it has been asserted that causes are never 
singular, but always dual or multiple, i. e., concurrent. The 
only element of this problem worth discussion grows out of 
the confounding of the conditions of an event with its cause 
or causes / for causes may, not must, be dual and concurrent. 
There may be many concurrent conditions necessary to the 
operation of an efficient cause, but it is to confound all logi- 
cal relations to rank them all together, and denominate them 
the coordinate causes of the resultant effect. 

3. Classification of causes. — Aristotle classified causes un- 
der four general heads or divisions, viz. : 

(a) Efficient causes ; that is, real causes. 

{h) Material causes ; that is, the material out of which a 
thing is made. 

(c) Formal causes ; that is, the plan, or fashion, or model, 
according to which a thing is made ; and, 

(d) Final causes ; that is, the end, purpose, or design, for 
which a thing is made. 

For some purposes, this classification is convenient, but 
it is obvious that the second and third are not causes, but 
conditions, according to the distinction made in the preced- 
ing paragraph, while the fourth refers to the subjective mo- 
tives in view of which the will puts forth its volition to act. 
At the present day, the first and fourth are the only formg 
that are practically recognized. 
4 



74: THE INTELLECT: 

Sec. III. — The Category of Relation*. 

Consciousness, dealing as it does continually with tlie 
category of being, under the conditions of the category of 
limitation, universally, necessarily, and therefore intuitively, 
attains to the affirmation of the category of relation, i. e., to 
the concepts of the true, the beautiful, and the good, which 
must now, in turn, be subjected to discrete analysis. 

^ I. The True. — Prominent among the relations of things 
intuitively perceived by the human consciousness, js that re- 
lation which we denominate the true, or truth. Like all other 
intuitive concepts, its origin is hidden by the veil of childhood, 
and we can only conjecture the conditions under which it is 
evolved in consciousness, and assumes its legitimate place in 
the hierarchy of thought. The universality and necessity of 
the concept cannot be denied ; all men, savage and civilized, 
young and old, recognize it. There are none so young, if 
capable of thought, to whom it is strange ; none so ignorant 
among the lowest savages, that they do not possess it. 
Truth is, indeed, the proximate goal, at least, toward which 
all legitimate thought normally tends. Its opposite, false- 
hood, if ever the conscious object of the processes of human 
thought, is so abnormally, and, for special ends, sought in 
and through its agency, and not for itself. 

1. Analysis of the concept.— ThQ concept of truth in- 
volves, necessarily, the concept of a primitive judgment de- 
termining the agreement or non-agreement of two percepts. 
Concepts, as such, are real or unreal j judgments are true or 
false. Popularly, however, the real and unreal are con- 
founded with the true and false ; and this is, perhaps, a 
natural resultant of a curious logical paradox that will be 
noted in the sequel, namely, " that every concept implies a 
prior act of judgment ; while, technically, a judgment is 
nothing more than a formal comparison of two concepts." 
This paradox, as it doubtless occasions, probably also justi- 
fies, the popular application of the terms true and false to 
concepts as well as to judgments; although, strictly con- 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. Y5 

sidered, the terms real and unreal are alone appropriate to 
concepts, and true and /a^se to judgments. In the intuitive 
concept of the true, or truth, we have the basal element of 
the moral nature of man, that which decisively distinguishes 
him from the most intelligent of the animal races. 

2. Nature of err or ^ or falsehood. — In any analysis of error 
or falsehood, it is necessary to discriminate accurately be- 
tween the natural and moral elements, as well as between 
subjective and objective truth. 

A statement is subjectively true when it accords with the 
facts as they are actually present to the consciousness of the 
speaker. 

A statement is objectively true when it accords with the 
reality of things, independently of fallible human perception. 

It is obvious, therefore, that, as between these two forms 
of truth, three cases, generically considered, are possible — 
viz. : 

{a) A statement may be true, both subjectively and ob- 
jectively ; that is, true in the highest sense of the term. 

{b) A statement may be subjectively true, but objectively 
false ; true morally, but not actually ; and, 

(c) A statement may be subjectively false, but objec- 
tively true ; or, morally false, but actually true. 

Shutting out deliberate moral falsehood, which belongs 
exclusively to the sphere of ethics, this analysis enables us 
to determine the nature and conditions of error, or natural, 
not moral, falsehood; namely, it is incomplete, im^perfect, or 
partial truth, seen or perceived out of, or apart from, its 
proper relations. Man necessarily sees any truth whatsoever 
from a personal stand-point and in a partial aspect. His 
conception of it is, therefore, necessarily one-sided and de- 
fective ; he is liable, consequently, to see its component ele- 
ments out of their true relations and proportions, the near 
obscuring or hiding the remote, just as the mote on the ob- 
ject-glass of the astronomer's telescope may hide a world, or 
be mistaken for a world. Perhaps no man ever held to error 
pure, simple, and unmixed with truth. It is the single grain 



76 THE INTELLECT: 

or germ, of truth, which the soul of the errorist has grasped 
and made the centre of his false system, which gives it all its 
vitality. He, therefore, who would combat error successfully, 
must seek to detect the underlying germ of truth around 
which the false system has crystallized, and rescue that from 
its unhallowed associations, and then the final destruction of 
the system is sure. 

% II. The Beautiful. — Above and beyond the conception 
and cognition of the true, any careful analysis of the facts 
of consciousness reveals another and kindred concept, viz., 
the beautiful. This concept, like all other primitive prod- 
ucts of consciousness, is simple and indefinable, and can be 
known only in our personal experience of it. Yet no one 
needs a definition of a term which sheds radiance and joy 
alike around the lives of prince and peasant — of the child and 
the philosopher. 

1. Analysis of the concept. — In looking upon a landscape, 
we are conscious, above and beyond the perception of 'the 
mountains, valleys, streams, rocks, trees, shrubs, grass, and 
flowers, which constitute it, of a perception of something, in 
the individual objects, in their grouping, in their coloring, or 
in their relations, that is not mountain, valley, rock, tree, or 
flower ; which fills the soul with emotions that thrill, exalt, 
and intensify it in the highest degree. This perception, with 
its accompanying emotion, we denominate the beautiful. It 
obviously involves an external objective element acting upon 
the mind through the senses, and a subjective capacity^ to 
which the objective element appeals ; and this subjective 
capacity, as already noted, includes both an intellectual ele- 
ment, a perception or cognition, and a sensible element, the 
emotion of beauty. 

2. Characteristics of the concept. — Fixing our attention 
upon the intellectual element, and relegating the emotion to 
its proper place among the sensibilities, we find it to possess 
certain characteristics which determine its nature and origin. 

(a) It is universal. This is a truth so obvious, even to 
the careless observer, that to state it is to prove it. Here 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 77 

the child and the savage are never at fault ; whatever other 
idea or concept may be wanting, that of the beautiful never 
is ; it is as universal as humanity. 

(b) It is primitive^ simple^ and indefinable. Various at- 
tempts have been made to reduce it to some more simple and 
ultimate form, thus assuming it to be at once complex and 
derivative. It has, for example, been ascribed or referred to 
novelty^ to utility^ to variety in unity ^ etc.^ etc., as generative 
principles / but every attempt of this character has failed, 
hopelessly, to satisfy even the more obvious conditions of the 
problem. It is notorious, for example, that many things are 
exceedingly useful which not even the most tasteless of men 
could be persuaded to imagine beautiful. So, again, many 
things are novel., in the highest degree, and yet hideously 
ugly; and so of the rest. It may well be questioned 
whether these theories, not excluding the higher spiritual 
theory which resolves beauty into the manifestation of spirit- 
ual ideas or existence under material forms, are not based 
upon a misconception of the nature of the concept. If that 
is, in fact, as a majority of the ablest psychologists of the day 
concede, an intuitive concept, it must needs be simple, primi- 
tive, indefinable, necessary. To attempt to define it by a 
determination of its underlying elements is at once to exclude 
it from the category oi primitive, necessary, or intuitive con- 
cepts ; and yet, very strangely, authors who most strenuously 
assert its intuitive character, spend page after page in the 
attempt to resolve it. into its elements. Tried by the deci- 
sive criteria of universality and necessity, it must be ad- 
judged to be an intuition of the human soul, as simple and 
indefinable as its congener, the true. Different individuals 
and races of men vary in the clearness of their perceptions of 
the beautiful, and in the vividness and strength of their emo- 
tions of beauty, but in none are either wholly wanting, save 
in cases whose developments are manifestly abnormal. 

It may, however, be argued that if beauty be indefinable 
men cannot possess any common standard whatever. This does 
not follow, and were just as valid as an objection against any 



78 THE INTELLECT: 

other primitive concept whatsoever, and is therefore worth 
less. • It, in fact, ignores the real element of unity involved, 
namely : the identity of humanity under all its varied man- 
ifestations, both normal and abnormal. Varieties of taste 
depend much more, as will be seen in the sequel, upon differ- 
ences of culture^ and the influence of fashion, than upon dif- 
ferences of mental nature, whether intellectual or sensitive. 

3. Cognition of beauty — taste. — This is a complex element, 
involving both the intellectual perception, and the emotion 
of beauty, and is perfect in proportion — ■ 

(a) To the natural strength and delicacy of these ele- 
ments ; and, 

(h) To the completeness and perfection of their culture. 

The intellectual and emotional elements are not neces- 
sarily in direct proportion to each other. In uncultivated 
minds, the emotion ordinarily predominates ; in cultivated, 
the intellectual element. The latter is the essential element 
in what may be termed critical taste, in which the conscious- 
ness reacts upon itself, and seeks to determine the laws of 
harmony and beauty, and to separate intelligently the dis- 
cordant from the accordant elements, and to ascertain the 
relations of the actual beauty, cognized in the object, to the 
higher ideal beauty shrined in the depths of the soul. He 
who would enjoy beauty in its highest sense, must lose the 
critic in the man ; he who would criticise beauty, and pursue 
it to its secret hiding-places, must lose the man in the critic. 

Supplementary Topic. 

Siiblimity. — Closely allied to beauty is the sublime. It 
must, in fact, be ranked under the generic hea'd of beauty, 
since it cannot, with propriety, be assigned to a coordinate 
rank with it and the other concepts of the category of rela- 
tion, nor yet be assigned to any other department of mind. 
Like simple beauty, it is at once a perception and an emo- 
tion, but the emotional element ordinarily strongly predomi- 
nates. Few men, comparatively, are capable of cognizing 
the sublime, as an intellectual element apart from the corre- 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 79 

spending emotion, which, by its overpowering intensity, swal- 
lows up and obscures the perception ; hence few are able, in 
the light of consciousness, to distinguish the intellectual act 
at all. As contradistinguished from beauty, as a coordinate 
species under the common genus, it is discriminated or 
marked by the concepts of vastness, power, etc., etc., which 
enter into the concept of the sublime, but not into that of 
the beautiful. The sublime may therefore, without impro- 
priety, be defined to be beauty elevated and intensified by 
the elements of vastness, power, etc., etc. Accordingly we 
find that IN'iagara is alternately beautiful and sublime, in 
proportion as we include or exclude from consciousness, for 
the time being, the hidings of resistless power that are ever- 
more present there. The same analogies may be traced in all 
the forms of natural as well as moral beauty and sublimity, 
but it is needless ; our object is rather to suggest thought 
than to furnish it ; to guide the student in his own psycho- 
logical researches, than to unfold to him the imperfect and 
unauthoritative results of our own. 

*f III. The Right, the Good. — The terms right and good 
are here placed side by side, not, on the one hand, because 
they are regarded as strict synonymes, and therefore inter- 
changeable ; nor yet, on the other, because the right is in 
any sense, as is sometimes affirmed, a derivative conception, 
dependent upon the good, as its ultimate ground, basis, or 
principle ; but because the term right, in its ordinary use, 
expresses a part only of the essential generic concept which 
we desire to note and investigate here. The term good, 
taken alone, is, as we conceive it, even less significant ; hence, 
in a determinate synthesis of the two, we have sought to ex- 
press the real idea involved. 

1. Analysis of the generic concept. — Any discrete analy- 
sis of the facts of consciousness, as they are evolved in our 
daily lives, cannot fail to distinguish among the relations 
there existing one peculiar in its nature and attributes, in 
that it belongs not to things, but to men, and that in man 
it fastens exclusively upon his intelligejit voluntary activity. 



80 THE INTELLECT: 

Here, perhaps, the true original distinction between the terms 
good and right decisively emerges in consciousness. We 
say of an apple or orange, it is good or had ; of the intelli- 
gent voluntary action of a man, it is right or ivrong y and 
this discrimination is, so far forth at least, universal, that 
men never apply the adjectives right and wrong to things, as 
the apple or the orange. Secondarily, however, they have 
learned to transfer the epithets good and had from material 
to spiritual things, and use them interchangeably with right 
and wrong^ as attributes of moral or voluntary action. In 
fact, good and bad, as descriptive adjectives, when trans- 
ferred to the plane of humanity, should have been restricted 
to the men themselves^ and should not have been applied to 
actions at all^ to which the adjectives right and wrong 
should have been exclusively reserved. This distinction has, 
however, not been intelligently maintained, and the result 
has been, that men have fallen into the error of s.eeking to 
account for the concept of the right, by reducing it to the 
rank of a mere derivative from the idea of the good. If this 
analysis be correct, the term good may be taken as represent- 
ing a genus, in which the term right represents a distinct and 
peculiar species, sid generis^ including, only and exclusively^ 
intelligent voluntary action. If this distinction be accepted 
as real and legitimate, it goes far toward determining the 
two remaining problems which demand a solution, namely : 
(a) the nature, and (6) the origin of these correlated con- 
cepts. 

2. JSTature and origin of these concepts. — Various the- 
ories have been propounded in reference to the nature and 
origin of these concepts. Practically, the only theories that 
are worth noting may be reduced in essence to two, and but 
two ; their minor modifications may be discounted in an ele- 
mentary work like this, which necessarily deals with princi- 
ples, and not details. 

{a) The theory of henevolent utility. This bases the 
idea of the right upon that of the good, and identifies the 
latter with the happiness begetting or r>roducing. It affirms 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 81 

that that is right which is good, and that that is good which 
tends to the production of happiness ; or, reducing the theory 
to its ultimate analysis at once : " That is right which tends 
to happiness ; that is wrong which produces unhappiness." 
In opposition to this theory, we posit four propositions, viz. : 

First. That it confounds, at once and decisively, the in- 
tuitive distinction that men make in the application or use 
of the terms good and right — a use whose presence and real- 
ity can be traced through all ages and all languages. If the 
right were nothing more or nothing else than the good, the 
words ought to be, uniformly and universally^ interchange- 
able, which is not true. The fact is undeniable that the term 
right carries with it a peculiar content or meaning which 
the term good does not, which restricts its use to voluntary 
action. It is not denied that the term good is actually ap- 
plied to voluntary action, but when so applied few would 
venture to assert that it conveys all the actual significance 
of the term right used in the same relation. The first move- 
ment of the proposed identification is, therefore, a failure. 

Second. It resolves both the right and the good into 
selfishness. Some advocates of the theory of utility have 
sought to evade this objection, by positing a henevolent and 
not a selfish utility as the condition of the right or the good. 
But if the legitimacy of this postulate be conceded, the 
theory still fails, decisively, because it does not and cannot 
supply, or account for, the authoritative element, the categori- 
cal imperative of conscience^ which is the essential charac- 
teristic of our concept of the right. Tell a man that he 
ought to do thus and so, because it will make the Choctaw 
Indians or the Chinese happy, and the response you would re- 
ceive would inevitably be, " Let them take care of their own 
happiness, that is none of my business." Tell him that he 
ought to do it, because it will minister to his own highest 
happiness, and he will still answer you, unhesitatingly, " I 
prefer another, even if it be a lower form of happiness ; " and 
your mouth is closed : you cannot legitimately tell him, from 
the stand-point of either a benevolent or a selfish utility, 



82 THE INTELLECT: 

that he " ought to do right^'' for he would tell you, " There is 
no ought in the case, it is a mere calculation of possible hap- 
piness and misery." 

Third. In its last analysis, it resolves right and wrong 
into simple volitions of the Divine Being; prior to which 
nothing was either right or wrong, good or evil. It also 
legitimates the hypothesis that, in other worlds, God may 
have, conceivably, made happiness dependent upon hatred, 
adultery, and falsehood^ and misery result from justice, 
mercy, and truth. 

Finally. If an appeal to revelation is admissible, it must 
be added that the theory confuses and contradicts all those 
passages of Scripture, on the one hand, which declare God's 
ways to be just, equal, and right ; and turns to mockery, on 
the other, those in which God challenges man to test His 
truth, goodness, and mercy. For to ask, as God has sol- 
emnly done, by the mouth of the prophet, " Are not my 
ways equal ? " (i. e., just or right) " saith the Lord," is, on this 
hypothesis, simply to perpetrate the farce and the mockery 
of asking, " Are not my ways my ways ? saith the Lord." 

(5) The second alternative theory represents right and 
wrong as necessary attributes or immutable relations of in- 
telligent voluntary action. These concepts may be con- 
ceived, in their ultimate analysis, as sustaining toward God 
and all truly voluntary beings, i. e., to all moral agents, a 
relation analogous to that which space and tiine sustain to 
material existence. According to this theory, God has so 
arranged the relations and consequences of human action, 
that conformity to the right shall in the end result in good, 
and non-conformity to right result in evil. It need hardly 
be said that this accords better with the spontaneous con- 
sciousness of man, in all ages, as expressed in the crystallized 
forms of language, than its rival, but it should be said, em- 
phatically, that it alone harmonizes with the facts of con- 
sciousness. Every student may test this, decisively, by pro- 
posing to himself, or to another, a course of alternative action 
involving grave interests. Two questions at once arise, viz., 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 83 

first ^ Is the proposed act right f and, second, Will it be 
useful or profitable f i. e.. Will it pay? — iN'ow if the doc- 
trine of utility, either benevolent or selfish, be true, and the 
happiness-begetting, the good and the right are identical; 
then these questions are not dual and diverse^ but one and 
identical, a conclusion which it is safe to say no man in his 
soul believes or feels. It is perfectly safe to add that no 
moralist, even of the utility school, ever practically confounds 
them in actual life, however little he may regard right, or 
however strong may be his devotion to his pet theory. 

The decision of the nature of these concepts carries with 
it the determination of their origin as primitive, necessary, 
universal, and therefore intuitive concepts or affirmations of 
consciousness, the only and all-sufficient basis of the moral 
nature of man and the moral government of the universe. 

Sec. ly. — Coordination' and Correlation of these 
Categories. — Evolution of the Concept of God. 

The next step in the process of mental evolution is neces- 
sary and immediate, namely, the coordination and correla- 
tion of the categories of being, limitation, and relation, and 
the evolution of the resultant concepts. 

At this point a remark is necessary by way of explana- 
tion, namely : no definite order of the evolution and devel- 
opment of the necessary percepts, concepts, and beliefs of the 
human soul can be assumed; the actual process is hidden 
from us by the veil of childhood. The logical processes 
only are open to our inspection, and, in reference to them, 
there is room for diversity of opinion. They necessarily in- 
volve, moreover, a commingling of diverse mental elements, 
together with a manifold repetition of each ; and the mind 
attains to the clearness and distinctness of reflection only 
after years of weary efibrt. It is obvious, for example, that 
the mental evolutions we have attempted to sketch have in-, 
volved memory, imagination, and judgment, which still, for^ 
mally at least, lie before us in the unexplored regions of 
thought. 



84: THE INTELLECT: 

^ I. Evolution of the Correlative Concepts of the Finite 
and Infinite. — The soul, conceiving body, as it necessarily 
does, under the conditions of space and time, by a like neces- 
sity conceives any particular body whatsoever as circum- 
scribed, limited, hounded, in a word as finite ; but these 
terms are essentially correlatives, and cannot be conceived 
or comprehended apart from the uncircumscrihed, the unlim- 
ited, the unbounded, the infinite. The knowledge of the two 
terms or poles of a true contradiction is one ; the two cannot 
be known apart. The question is not, here, whether the im- 
agination can actually grasp infinite space or duration, for it 
is obvious that it cannot, just as it cannot grasp indefinite 
space, as the Pacific Ocean, which is as really unimaginable 
in fact as infinity ; but whether the mind can conceive, in 
the sense of know, or recognize, the existence of infinity as a 
fact, just as it recognizes the existence of a (to it) practi- 
cally boundless finite, as the Pacific Ocean, or the solar sys- 
tem. We here repeat the statement, that we may emphasize 
it, a practically boundless finite is as absolutely inconceiv- 
able (in the sense of unimaginable) as a true infinite. The 
thoughtful student, who studies carefully the ponderous vol- 
umes that have been written to prove that man cannot 
know, because he cannot conceive, i. e., cannot imagine the 
infinite, will hardly escape the suspicion, at least, that their 
learned authors have egregiously failed in the outset to de- 
termine definitely what they themselves mean by conception, 
positive and negative. The truth is, the cognition or intui- 
tion of the finite and infinite, as attributes of matter on the 
one hand, and of space and time, on the other, is necessary 
and immediate. Nor are these concepts alien even to the 
mind of a child. Said a little girl to the writer, one starlight 
night, " What is there beyond the stars ? " the answer was, 
" Other stars ! " " And what," she asked again, " is beyond 
these ? " The answer was, again, " Other stars ! " She was si- 
lent a moment, and then came the decisive question : " And 
what is there beyond the farthest star ? " The thought of lim- 
itless, boundless, infinite space was struggling for expression 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. . §5 

in that almost infantile soul, that as yet could only lisp its 
thoughts in the broken speech of childhood. The conception 
of the infinite was as real and as vivid in the soul of that 
child as in the soul of a philosopher. The conclusion is irre- 
sistible that the concepts of the finite and infinite are uni- 
versally and necessarily evolved in the presence of the per- 
cepts of consciousness. 

% II. Application of the Concepts of the Finite and Infi- 
nite to the Categ-ory of Being. — The soul no sooner comes into 
the conscious possession of these correlated concepts, than it 
at once intuitively/ and necessarily/ proceeds to apply them 
as attributes to the correlated elements or factors of the cate- 
gory of being, and to evolve the logical resultants of this 
process : 

1. Application of the concepts of the finite and infinite 
to self and not-self, i. e., to man and the universe. As ap- 
plied to the former, the consciousness is immediate, direct, 
and obtrusive, that self, or the personality, is limited and 
finite — limited, in space, to the here ; in time, to to-day and 
yesterday, i. e., to a present conscious existence, and to a 
brief past existence whose flow memory readily spans. Ko 
consciousness is clearer or more determinate in the soul than 
that of the limited sphere of its own personality. 

As applied to the universe, these concepts result no less 
decisively in the cognition of its limited and finite character ; 
for it is precisely in its consciousness of self and not-self, as 
mutually acting and reacting upon each other, mutually lim- 
iting and limited, that the soul, as we have seen, comes to the 
consciousness of its own existence. In cognizing not-self, or 
the universe, it cognizes it as limited by self; i. e., again, 
cognizes it as finite. Nor should the fact be overlooked, in 
this connection, that this application of the concepts of the 
finite and infinite to the category of being, is equally legiti- 
mate and equally necessary, whether considered with refer- 
ence to space and time, extension and protension, or to cause 
or intension. In every case alike, the correspondence is per- 
fect, and the inference immediate. 



86 THE INTELLECT : 

2. Evolution of the concept of Infinite Being ^ i, e., of 
God. — The soul cannot rest in either term of a correlative 
pair or duality, singly and alone ; it must pass, by the very 
necessity of its being, to the opposite or complementary pole 
of thought. It comprehends the finite only on condition that 
it grasps the correlated concept of the infinite firmly and 
intelligently. Accordingly, in this concrete instance, it does 
not and cannot rest in the two complementary, mutually lim- 
iting and mutnsiWj limited finites, viz., man and the universe; 
since neither can account for the other, and much less can it 
account for itself. 'Nov can the mind, in the presence of 
finite being, escape or avoid the concept of Infinite Being ; 
nor, having attained to this new concept, can it fail to apply 
to it consciously the category of limitation, and evolve the 
affirmation that this Infinite Being, as filling at once infinite 
space and endless duration, is infinite cause also ; i. e., the 
uncaused cause of that finite being known in the depths of 
consciousness, and represented by self and not-self, man and 
the universe. The soul, in this synthesis of its intuitive con- 
cepts, comes at once to the concept of an adequate cause of 
the existence of self and not-self, of human intelligence and 
the material universe, of the human personality and mate- 
rial modality. But, as the cause or creator of human intelli- 
gence and of the human personality, the inference is neces- 
sary and immediate that this Infinite Being, God, is Himself 
an intelligent personality, and not a blind, unconscious soul 
of the world. 

^ in. Application of the Category of Relation to this Infi- 
nite Personality. — Another step remains, and that, like those 
which have preceded it, is immediate, direct, and necessary ; 
namely, the application of the category of relation i. e., of the 
concepts of the true, the beautiful, and the good, to this infi- 
nite personality necessitating the affirmation of infinite truth, 
infinite beauty, and infinite goodness, as the necessary or 
essential attributes of this absolute personality, i. e., of God ; 
the ultimate term or goal of human thought. Starting from 
the simple and familiar facts of consciousness^ we have 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 8Y 

evolved simultaneously or successively (as the several cases 
demanded) the concepts of self and not-self, man and the 
universe, of space, time, and cause ; of the true, the beauti- 
ful, and the good ; of the finite, and of an infinite being fill- 
ing space and duration, the uncaused cause of all things, in- 
finite in truth, beauty, and goodness — God over all, blessed 
for evermore ! 

Sec. V. — Resultant Conceptions. 

Apart from these primary relations, there are other sec- 
ondary ones which emerge, when, in the processes of the 
reflective or philosophical consciousness, man, nature, and 
God, the integers of human thought, are coordinated with 
each other. In order to logical completeness, this coordina- 
tion must now be undertaken and the resultant concepts 
generically (not specifically) determined. 

% I. Evolution of the Relations of the Finite to the Finite. 
— These relations may, for the sake of clearness or distinct- 
ness, be discriminated into three generic classes or groups, 
viz. : 

I. The relations of nature to nature (including man as an 
integral element of the cosmos), originating the general con- 
cept of science^ or, perhaps we should say, of the hierarchy of 
the sciences^ 

II. Th^ relations of nature to man^ originating the gen- 
eral concept of industry or art, using those terms generically 
rather than specifically ; and, 

III. The relations of man to tnan, originating the con- 
cept of government, in its broad, generic sense, as the repre- 
sentative of society as a vital organism. 

^ II. Evolution of the Relations of the Finite to the Infi- 
-nite. — These relations may be considered under two general 
classes, viz. : 

I. Tlie relations of man and the imiverse to God, origi- 
nating the science of metaphysics ; and, 

II. The relations of man as an intelligent, voluntary per- 
sonality to God, originating the science of theology. In 



88 THE INTELLECT: 

this, human thought culminates and reaches its Ultima Thule^ 
in which alone it can find perfect rest and complete satisfac- 
tion. 

OHAPTER III.— IN^TUITIYE AFFIRMATIONS OR PRIMI- 
TIVE JUDGMENTS. 

Preliminary Remarks. 

The student will remember that the intuitive affirmations 
of consciousness appeared under two forms, viz., intuitive 
concepts and intuitive judgments. The first have been, per- 
haps, sufficiently considered ; it now only remains to consider 
the second, under the general heads previously indicated, 
viz. : 1. The canons of thought ; 2. The axioms of mathemat- 
ics ; and, 3. The categorical imperative of conscience. 

Seotioi^" I. — ^The Cajn'Ons of Thought. 

The remark is appropriate in the outset, that no attempt 
is here made to present an exhaustive summary of intuitive 
concepts and judgments ; those only have been seized upon 
and coordinated, which, from their relative importance, were 
deemed indispensable to some degree of analytic clearness in 
the discussion of psychologic processes. Among the primi- 
tive judgments, it is obtrusively evident that what have been 
termed the canons of thought, or sometimes, technically, the 
canons of logic, are fundamental, as in a certain sense under- 
lying and conditioning all the others. They have been vari- 
ously stated and classified by different authors, the variety 
of statement not, however, affecting their real meaning or 
force, but only their forms. In the present instance the 
statements of Sir "William Hamilton have been substantially 
< followed. 

^ I. The Law of Identity. — This may most readily be 
interpreted algebraically by the equation: A=A. Other- 
wise it admits of a twofold statement, according to the use 
intended, viz. : 1. Any thing whatever is exactly equal to 
itself; or, 2. Any whole is exactly equal to the sum of all its 



ITS FIRST MOVEMEXT— PERCEPTION. 89 

parts, and vice versa. It obviously affords the logical basis 
of all affirmation and definition^ as well as of all true analy- 
sis, which consists, simply, in resolving the concrete or logi- 
cal whole into its constituent parts or elements. 

^ II. The Law of Contradiction. — This law is expressed 
logically under the general formula, "What is contradic- 
tory is unthinkable." Algebraically it may be expressed 
somewhat obscurely by the equation: A=Not-A=0, or A — 
A=0. This law is evidently the exact counterpart of the 
law of identity, though independent of it. In its practical 
use, it is the principle of all negation and distinction. 

^ III. The Law of Excluded Middle. — This enoLinces the 
condition of thought that compels us, of two repugnant or 
contradictory attributes or notions, which cannot coexist 
with each other, to think either the one or the other as ex- 
isting. Hence arises the general axiom : " Of contradictory 
attributes, we can only affirm one of a thing : if one be ex- 
plicitly affirmed, the other is implicitly denied^ It admits 
also of a secondary statement, which is, at times, logically 
convenient, viz. : " As between the terms or poles of a true 
logical contradiction, there can he no middle termP This 
law, which Sir William Hamilton strongly states and de- 
fends, he himself has most strangely violated, in his cele- 
brated review of M. Cousin's philosophy, where he postulates 
the conditionally limited or finite as a (thinkable) mean, 
between two contradictory extremes, viz., the unconditionally 
unlimited or infinite, and the unconditionally limited or abso- 
lute, a procedure in direct violation of this law, and therefore 
itself logically unthinkable. 

As, by the laws of identity and contradiction, we are 
authorized to conclude, from the truth of one contradictory 
proposition, the falsity of the other ; so, by the law of ex- 
cluded middle, we are authorized to reverse the process, and 
conclude, from the falsity of one contradictory proposition, 
the truth of the other. One or the other must be true : A 
either is, or is not, B. The law of excluded middle is, there- 
fore, the principle or basis of all disjunctive judgments. 



90 THE INTELLECT: 

1" lY. The Law of Reason and Consequent. — Thought, 
however, still requires another limitation in order to its legit- 
imacy ; it must not be capricious or lawless ; and this final 
limitation is found in the law of reason and consequent, or, 
as it is sometimes called, the law of the sufficient reason. 
Its simplest expression is found in the formula, " Infer noth- 
ing without a ground or reason." 

"The relations between reason and consequent, when 
comprehended in a pure thought, are the following : 

" 1. When a reason is explicitly or implicitly given, then 
there must be a consequent, and, vice versa, when a conse- 
quent is given, there must also exist a reason. 

" 2. Where there is no reason, there can be no consequent ; 
and, vice versa, where there is no consequent (either ex- 
plicitly or implicitly), there can be no reason." (Hamilton's 
" Logic," pp. 60, 61.) 

A single remark may be pertinent here, namely ; the law 
of reason and consequent is broader than the law of cause 
and effect, and includes the latter as c>ne of its specific forms. 

To these four simple and self-evident laws all the pro- 
cesses of thought must be subordinated ; and these laws, 
regulating all else and lying at the foundations of all intelli- 
gence, are simple intuitions of the conscious soul, having no 
other guarantee than their simple self-evidence ; they are unr 
'proved and unprovable. 

Sec. II. — The Axioms of Mathematics. 

Subordinate to the primary laws of thought, we meet on 
the threshold of the science of mathematics with a series of 
self-evident propositions or axioms, upon which rests the 
whole grand structure of that science, which, from their in- 
trinsic importance, demand at least brief, discrete notice. 

^ I. Examination of their Essential Forms. — As ordina- 
rily stated in works on geometry, they are, obviously, only 
special and secondary forms of the canons of thought ; espe- 
cially of the laws of identity and contradiction. For exam- 
ple, take the first, second, and third axioms ; I quote from 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 9I 

Robinson : " 1. Things whicli are equal to the same thing 
are equal to each other ; " " 2. When equals are added to 
equals, the wholes are equal ; " " 3. When equals are taken 
from equals, the remainders are equal ; " and it becomes 
evident that they are derived immediately from, and are in 
fact but variant forms of, the law of identity : that any thing 
is equal to itself, or a whole is equal to the sum of all its 
parts. So of all the rest, however enunciated. 

% II. Mathematics only a Special Form of Logic. — The pre- 
ceding paragraph reveals, at once, the fact that the whole 
science of mathematics, with all its grand developments, is 
only a special form of the science of logic ; and is, in fact, 
nothing more than the canons of logic specially applied or 
adapted to the relations of extension and force. This fact, 
however, does not justify in the slightest degree M. Comte's 
rejection of logic, and his assumption of mathematics as the 
only true canon of thought. He should, moreover, with his 
acknowledged mental acumen, have discovered that all the 
objections which he posits against logic lie with equal force 
against mathematics. 

Sec. ni. — The Categoeical Impeeative of Coit- 

SCIENCE. 

A third form of intuitive judgment which demands notice 
here, is that known as " the categorical imperative of con- 
science," and is expressed under the formulas, " I ought to 
do the right" — " I ought not to do the wrong." These correla- 
tive judgments underlie the whole moral nature of man, and, 
conjoined to the moral emotions and impulses, constitute 
that complex element which we denominate conscience. This 
judgment, as an unquestionably universal and necessary 
element or product of consciousness, must be accepted as 
authoritative and intuitive, and as evolved, a priori, 011 its 
own proper occasions. It is the true intellectual element 
underlying the moral emotions, and always accompanying 
the intellectual perception of the right. It cannot be dis- 
credited save at the cost of discrediting consciousness and 



92 THE INTELLECT: 

Stultifying reason. Any attempt to discriminate between 
primitive judgments, with a view to accredit some and to 
discredit others, in obedience to the necessities of any pet 
theory in physics, metaphysics, or morals, is unphilosophic, 
and can only lead to deceptive results. * So also the attempt 
to exclude conscience from the sphere of intellect, and rele- 
gate it exclusively to that of the sensibilities, is false in 
]3rinciple and fatal in practice ; and that analysis of the facts 
of consciousness which fails to discover the categorical im- 
perative of conscience among the primitive judgments, must 
be adjudged radically and dangerously incomplete. 



PERCEPTION: SYOTHESIS OF ELEMEOTS. 

COaNITlON. 

CHAPTEE I.— NATUEE, CONDITIONS, AND LIMITATIONS OF COG- 
NITION. 

SeCTI02«^ I. x^ATUEE OF CoG]S^ITIO]S'. 

The general nature and conditions of cognition or per- 
ception have already, perhaps, been sufficiently indicated 
in general terms ; but logical precision demands that they 
should be discretely enunciated here, in a synthesis of sensa- 
tion and intuition. 

^'I. Definition of the Term. — Cognition may be defined to 
be " perception or knowledge based upon the synthesis and 
coordination of sensation and intuition in consciousness." 
Its precise place in the hierarchy of mind is thus definitely 
fixed, and it is relieved from the vagueness and indistinct- 
ness that too often shadow it, even in the works af able 
psychologists. It is believed that the propriety of this defi- 
nition, and of the corresponding classification which it in- 
volves, has been sufficiently vindicated in the previous dis- 
cussions, and needs no further support here. 

^ II. Nature of the Process. — Perception, cognition, or 
knowledge — for here the words are used as strictly inter- 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 93 

changeable — is the expression of that notice which the con- 
sciousness takes of the actual, whether in the material or 
the spiritual world, through sensation and intuition. It is a 
knowledge of the now and the here. That this is true of the 
objects of sense needs no further elucidation ; that it is 
equally true of the objects of intuition, will readily appear 
by a slight analysis. If we consider the category of being, 
self and not-self are obviously cognized, now and here ; and 
if we consider the third term, God, the Infinite Being, He can 
no otherwise be known than as now and here, since He can 
never be absent in space or time. If the category of limita- 
tion be considered, space and time are never absent ; while 
cause, if known at all, must be known either in itself or in 
its effects, but in either case it must be known as present, 
since the cause is potentially, at least, present in its effects. 
If the category of relation be considered, the judgment cog- 
nized as true — the object perceived to be beautiful — and 
the relations adjudged right or good, must alike be present 
to the consciousness; i. e., they must be cognized now and 
here. 

Sec. II. — Conditions of Cognition. 

Our summary would be incomplete without a formal 
restatement of that which has already been sufficiently de- 
clared, namely, the essential elements or conditions of cog- 
nition, viz., sensation and intuition, and their relations to the 
process. 

^ I. Sensation. — The fact has been distinctly evolved, and 
scarcely needs to be reannounced, that sensation is the oc- 
casion rather than the essence of cognition. Its office is 
rather to awaken and call the intuitive powers of the soul 
into activity than to furnish the more important elements of 
thought. It is true, in a certain sense, that sensation is said 
to furnish the material elements of thought, but this is true 
only of thoughts relating to material "things in the proper 
sense of the term, since consciousness itself must furnish all 
the true spiritual elements, which are not and cannot be ob- 



94 THE INTELLECT: 

jects of sense. If, however, doubts still remain in the mind 
of the thoughtful student, they can best be satisfied by a 
careful analysis of the facts of his own personal consciousness. 
For it must be distinctly remembered that consciousness is 
the only decisive authority, and the final court of appeal, in 
all questions of psychology ; here, authorities are of little 
value. 

^ II. Intuition. — Intuition, the second element in cogni- 
tion, might perhaps, with some degree of propriety, be iden- 
tified with cognition itself, sustaining to it, as it does, the 
double relations of a source of materials, and of the efficient 
agent in the evolution of the resultant cognitions arising out 
of the synthesis of the sensation proper and the intuition 
proper. The fact has been already indicated that the intui- 
tion, or rather the consciousness, in its exercise of its intui- 
tive powers, necessarily employs the processes oi comparison, 
i. e., of the judgment, and of course, to a limited extent, of 
memory and imagination also. This, however, is only a new 
proof of the indivisible unity of consciousness, and of the ex- 
ceedingly slender thread on which hangs the idea of indepen- 
dent mental faculties. 

Sec. III. — Limitations op Cogn-itioit. 

For like reasons pertaining to distinctness of conception, 
it is here necessary to restate, formally, the limitations of 
cognition, viz. : 

1. In the material world, cognition is limited to the now 
in time, and the here in space. 

2. In the spiritual world, it is limited strictly : 

{a) To the facts of consciousness known immediately 
and directly as actual phenomena of the present moment; 
and — 

{h) To primitive concej^ts and judgments spontaneously 
evolved by consciousness in the exercise of its intuitive 
powers. Whatever is not legitimately concluded under one 
or the other of these categories, is not a legitimate object of 
cognition. 



ITS FIRST MOVEMENT— PERCEPTION. 95 

Sec. IV. — Validity of Cognition. 

To the oft-raised and mucli-mooted question of the valid- 
ity or credibility of cognition or perception, the simple and 
decisive answer is, that faith is necessary, and skepticism or 
doubt self-destructive, and therefore irrational : 

1. That faith is necessary and unavoidable is proved by 
the fact that no skeptic, of any age or any land, ever did re- 
•alize or actualize, in practical life, his theoretical skepticism. 

2. That skepticism or doubt is irrational, is just as de- 
cisively proved by the fact that it proposes to invalidate 
consciousness, by the testimony of consciousness, a proceed- 
ing so irrational that to state it is to refute it. 

Here the appeal to common-sense is decisive, and is equal- 
ly conclusive against the philosopher and the ignoramus. 



CHAPTER IL— RELATIONS OF COGNITIOIlT TO CONCEP- 
TION AND BELIEF. 

Section I. — Relations of CoCinition to Conception. 

^ I. How discriminated logically? — Logically, cognition 
is discriminated from conception by its objects. The first, 
as we have seen, deals with the real, or actual, whether 
material or spiritual. The second deals solely with the 
ideal, as it is evolved in thought. 

% II. How discriminated chronologically ? — Chronologi- 
cally, cognition is distinguished from conception by priority 
in time. Presentative necessarily precedes representative 
knowledge ; albeit the interval between them, in the rapid 
flow of thought, can be measured only m thought, and not 
in seconds. 

^ III. How discriminated actually ? — Actually, the two 
are wholly incommensurable. The conceivable is not, as is 
sometimes afiirmed, the measure, either : 

1. Of the actual, as known in consciousness ; or, 

2. Of the knowahle. 

That it is not the measure of the actual, each successive 



96 THE INTELLECT: 

Step of advancing science proves ; that which men did not^ 
and could not., conceive yesterday., becomes actual to-day., and 
to-morrow becomes the starting-point of a new and higher 
evolution, and, in this respect, " that which hath been, is. that 
which shall be." 

That it is not the measure of the Jcnowahle., may not at 
first sight seem so obvious to some minds, which have been 
accustomed to reject the inconceivable, a priori, as at once 
impossible and unknowable. That a self-acting steam-engine 
is, a priori, an impossible conception to an ignorant savage 
in Central Africa, needs no proof; that the thing itself is im- 
possible, or that it is unknowable by the same savage, when 
he is brought in actual contact with it, will not be asserted. 
The fallacy underlying the sophism that " the inconceivable 
is unknowable," chiefly results from absolutely identifying 
conception with imagination, on the one hand, and with 
knowledge, on the other ; when, in fact, imagination is not 
coextensive with conception, and conception is not coexten- 
sive with knowledge, but is only a tnode of knowledge. 
Imagination is, in the main, limited to the sphere of the 
material universe, and is not capable of grasping even that, 
in its entirety, while thought transcends the material, and 
grasps the still wider sphere of the spiritual. The truth is, 
the sophism is the resultant, not of psychological investiga- 
tion, but oi a priori theorizing. 

N"ot to multiply words, it suffices to say that decisive 
proof that the conceivable is not the measure of the Jcnowahle 
is found in the well-known fact that the man born blind 
cannot conceive color, though its existence, as a fact, can be 
decisively revealed to him. 

3. It is, however, the measure of the comprehensible. — Men 
may and do cognize, as facts, many things which they can 
iiQ\th.QV conceive nor comprehend. In such cases, their knowl- 
edge is of a very tantalizing and unsatisfactory character, 
but it is not, therefore, unreal. Thus, the man born blind 
cannot comprehend color, the man born deaf cannot compre- 
hend sound, and so of the rest ; yet the facts and even the 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION". 97 

laws of these plienomena are familiar to him. Said an intelli- 
gent gentleman once, in the presence of the writer : " I can- 
not comprehend what music is, I cannot distinguish one tune 
from another, and the sound of the filing of a saw is just as 
pleasant to me as the sound of a piano." Yet the man was 
not deaf, and he was well acquainted with the mathematical 
laws of music, but the thing itself was incomprehensible. 
Owing to some defect in his hearing, his imagination had no 
power to respond to his logical knowledge of the term music. 

Sec. II. — Relations of CogstitiojS' to Belief. 

i" I. How they are discriminated logically. — Logically, 
cognition is discriminated from belief, by the fact that the 
former is an immediate knowledge, the latter is always 
mediate. Objects known in perception are known in their 
relations to the sensorium; objects known in belief, or by 
reasoning, are known only in and through other objects or 
conceptions previously known — i. e., they are mediately 
known. 

^ II. How they are discriminated chronologically. — 
Chronologically, perception or cognition precedes belief, and 
furnishes the data for the concepts which are compared in 
the propositions and the syllogisms upon which beliefs are 
based. 



THE INTELLECT: ITS SECOND MOVEMENT. 

CONCEPTION. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

Summary of Results. 

«[f I. Materials of Thought furnished in Perception, — Our 
preceding discussions have evolved, clearly and sharply, the 
generic fact that all the materials of thought used in intel- 
lection, in any of its stages or processes, are furnished in per^ 
5 



98 THE INTELLECT: 

ception either through sensation or intuition. It only remains 
to inquire how the consciousness reacts upon and fashions 
this material into formal concepts and evolves its several 
values, actual and potential, by the processes of reasoning. 

% II. Conditions of this Evolution. — It is obvious that, in 
order to the evolution of all the actual and potential values of 
the materials of thought given in perception, two processes are 
indispensable, viz. : 

1. That it shall be stored up in memory as in a mental 
treasury, ready at all times to be reproduced at the bidding of 
consciousness, like coin in the vaults of a bank ; and — 

2. That it shall be grasped, comprehended, and conceived 
in all its varied relations, actual and potential, by the pro- 
cesses of the imagination and the synthetic judgment ; and 
thus reduced to the form of specific concepts, bearing much 
the same relation to the crude material of perception that 
the corned gold of the mint does to the crude bullion from 
the mine. 

SECTIOi^' I. COISDITIONS A^sTD LlMITATIOi^S OF THE CoXCEPT. 

^ I. Materials of the Concept. — For materials, the concept 
depends upon the elements of thought furnished in percep- 
tion and stored in memory. We conceive the absent, and 
not the present — the remembered, and not the perceived ob- 
ject. However widely the ideal world of thought is seen to 
differ from the actual, it is, as will appear more clearly in the 
sequel, dependent upon it for the elements upon which its 
ideals are based, thus reversing in man the processes of the 
Divine Mind, in which the ideal universe must have preceded 
the real, and the possible have pioneered the actual. 

^ II. The Processes of Conception. — The term " processes " 
is here used, determinately, instead of process, to mark the 
fact that conception is generically a synthesis of the di- 
verse movements of imagination and the synthetic judgment. 
We say it is generically so, recognizing the fact that in some 
forms of the concept the presence of the imaginative element 
\& potential y2l\j\iqy \h2tii. actual ; conception therefore involves: 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 99 

1. The processes of imagination, whicli acts upon the sen- 
sible material stored in memory, evolving from the real, as 
given in perception, its corresponding ideal. 

2. The processes of the synthetic judgment, which acts 
upon the rational or supersensible material furnished in per- 
ception, originating its corresponding ideal. 

A discrete remark must, here, be distinctly made, viz: 
that while imagination is, practically, limited to sensible ob- 
jects, the synthetic judgment is not limited to the supersen- 
sible, but grasps the sensible with almost equal facility ; and 
is involved in the evolution of every true logical concept, 
whether it represents the sensible or the rational. 

^ III. Eesultant Forms of the Concept. — From the dual 
processes of imagination and judgment, two resultant forms 
of the concept emerge, viz. : 

1. Concepts of material objects and relations. — These in- 
volve true mental pictures drawn by the plastic finger of 
fancy. This form of the concept may rest, practically, in 
this imaginative process, or it may be submitted to the com- 
plete logical processes of the synthetic judgment also, and 
may be termed, distinctively, the comprehensible. 

2. Concepts of non-material percepts ; of which no men- 
tal picture is possible, giving rise to the knowable merely. 

Sec. II. — The Office of the Concept. 

^ I. To reduce our Percepts to Possession. — The first and 
most obvious office of the concept is to reduce our percepts to 
possession, and make them available in our processes of intel- 
lection. The materials of perception much resemble a mass 
of crude ore from the mine, whose real value, as it lies in a 
heap in the treasure-house, is utterly indeterminate, and al- 
most wholly unavailable ; and, in precise analogy to the pro- 
cesses of the smelter and the assayer, are the processes of the 
imagination and judgment, to which the crude material of 
thought is subjected. Logical concepts are the stamped coin 
of the realms of thought. 

^ II. To mediate their Forms. — The second office of con- 



100 THE INTELLECT: 

ception is to mediate the forras of our percepts, and prepare 
them, for the use of the elaborative faculty and the processes 
of reason. True logical concepts alone meet the necessities 
of accurate syllogistic reasoning. 

*f III. Conception the Measure of the Comprehensible only. 
— The fact has been already sufficiently stated that conception 
is not the measure of either the actual or the knowable, but 
only of the comprehensible. 



COI^CEPTIOI: ITS FIEST ELEMENT. 

MEMORY. 
General Analysis. 

^ I. Memory defined. — ^JMemory, like other primitive men- 
tal processes, is best known in the personal consciousness of 
its exercise, and needs, for its practical definition, little more 
than the use of such forms of words as will indicate to the 
student the distinctive process of consciousness sought to be 
defined. Scientifically, however, it demands such a colloca- 
tion of terms as will, in thought, include all the essential 
elements of the complex act of consciousness, and exclude all 
others. It may, perhaps, with sufficient accuracy, be de- 
fined to be that power or facidty of consciousness by 
which it retains^ reproduces^ or recollects^ its own acts or affec- 
tions. At first thought, this limitation of memory to acts and 
affections of consciousness would seem to be too narrow ; yet 
it cannot be extended, since other things, if remembered at 
all, are recollected only in and through the acts and affec- 
tions of the personal consciousness. I recollect, for example, 
the parting words of a loved friend, only as they affected my 
personal consciousness, acting upon it through the organs of 
sense. 

^ n. Analysis of an Act of Memory. — In an act of mem- 
ory, two parts or movements must be distinguished and 
noted, viz. : 

1. The act of retention, in which consciousness grasps and 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 101 

stores away, as part at least of its potential treasures, each 
act and affection of its own conscious being. 

2. The act of reproduction, in wMcli consciousness repro- 
duces, in thought, the act or affection thus stored away. 
Reproduction, as an act of consciousness, obviously manifests 
itself under two distinct forms, viz. : 

{a) Involuntary, in which the thing remembered is re- 
produced independently of the will, in obedience to what are 
termed the laws of association of ideas. This form is prop- 
erly termed rememhrance. 

(b) Yoluntary, in which the thing reproduced in thought 
is recalled in obedience to an act of the will, for some definite 
reason or purpose. This form is properly termed recollection. 

Section I. — Retentio]^-. 

^ I. Nature of Hetention. — This is sufiiciently indicated 
by the term used, viz., "to retain, " i. e., to grasp firmly, to 
hold. It expresses accurately the true ' psychological pro- 
cess involved. The fact is familiar, indeed almost common- 
place, but the process, like all other elementary phenomena 
of consciousness, is utterly inscrutable and incomprehensible. 
It is in vain that cerebral physiologists tell us of the repe- 
tition of nervous vibrations, or of cerebral movements re- 
peated until they have become habitual, or of movements 
once beginning that can never be lost. These and other like 
physiological theories, if the truth of such vibrations and 
pulsations were absolutely demonstrated, would solve no one 
of the mysteries that hang around the purely psychical pro- 
cess of retention. After such demonstration, we should be 
no more able to bridge the gulf between the physiological 
fact of the nervous or cerebral movement and the psychical 
fact of retention, than we are to close the chasm between the 
pictured image on the retina of the eye and the purely 
psychical sensation of color. The truth is, all speculation on 
the mode or philosophy of retention, from the stand-point of 
the science of to-day, is utterly futile ; as to what the future 
may reveal, it is idle to speculate. 



102 THE INTELLECT: 

^ IT. Conditions of Retention. — These obviously are, for- 
mally at least, twofold in their character, pertaining, first, 
to the subjective consciousness ; and, secondly, to the ob- 
jective element or specific fact, or relation, or thing, remem- 
bered. We are to consider, therefore — 

1. The subjective elements : 

{a) Natural inequality of mental power. The natural in- 
equality of the powers of memory in difierent individuals is 
so marked a phenomenon in human experience that it needs 
no proof, and is never controverted, save from the stand- 
point of some favorite a priori hypothesis of the natural 
equality of men in all things, which does not condescend to 
notice the actual phenomena of mind, only as it spends its 
strength in vainly attempting to account for the very great 
inequalities actually manifest among men apparently equal 
to each other in all other elements of mental power but 
this. 

{h) The power of attention. Inattention is fatal to the 
power of retention; that which the mind fails to grasp 
strongly, it cannot retain firmly / but the mind can only 
grasp that strongly to which it attends closely. Every 
thoughtful student will, however, verify this truth so readily 
in his own experience that it is idle to offer illustrations of it 
here. 

2. The objective element, i. e., the thing remembered. — Here 
the fact must be noted that a percept or thought is, as a 
thing remembered, a true objective element, having its own 
intrinsic character and relations, which determine, in part at 
least, the facility or difficulty with which it is retained. The 
facility of retention is, from the objective stand-point, propor- 
tioned to, or affected by : 

(a) The intrinsic character of the thing remembered. The 
mistake must not here be made of confounding character 
with value, for some things of high intrinsic value seem to 
escape us, no matter how earnestly we desire to retain them ; 
and some of no value whatever, or, on the contrary, perhaps 
hurtful and polluting, cling to us like the fatal shirt of Nessus, 



ITS SECOND MOYEMENT— CONCEPTION. 103 

whether we will it or not. Character in the thing remem- 
bered, by the law of similarity or contrast, responds to the 
character of the mind, and. thus the object is fastened in the 
memory. 

(b) The form of the thing remembered. This is an ele- 
ment of great power, and its influence is, practically, but 
slightly comprehended. Two men may speak or write ex- 
actly the same thought in but slightly differing forms of 
words, and yet the one will, together with his thought, soon 
be forgotten ; while the other will rivet his thought to the 
soul of his hearer or reader as with triple links of steel. 
Here the difference is simply one of the forms of expression, 
and depends but slightly, if at all, upon the interest of the 
hearer or reader. Thoughts or facts, in order to be retained, 
must be individualized. 

(c) The relations of the thing remembered. Some things 
connect themselves more nearly with our habitual trains of 
thoughts — our feelings — our prejudices — or our interests — 
than others, and are consequently more readily retained. 
The relations here posited are not usually, those of intrinsic, 
but of factitious interest ; the boy will remember the funny 
story or filthy jest long after he has forgotten the problem 
of Euclid. 

^ HI. The Office of detention. — Tlie office of retention as 
an element of memory has already been sufficiently declared 
in the preceding discussions. It is its central or basal element, 
and may not inaptly be termed the very key-stone of the 
arch of conscious intelligence. Strike this from the soul, and 
its existence becomes a meaningless blank, without past — 
without future — void of hope, and unconscious of fear. . To 
such a being, life would not, and could not, attain to the 
dignity even of a dream. 

Sec. II. — Reprodtjction-. 

^ I. Involuntary: Eemembrance. — Reproduction, or the 
reproductive power of memory, as already noted, appears 
under two forms, the involuntary, or simple remembrance ; 



104: THE INTELLECT: 

and the voluntary^ or recollection. Remembrance, as the 
basal form of reproduction, demands primary notice. 

1. Nature of rememhrance. — This process, as familiarly- 
known in om- daily consciousness, may be defined to be the 
recurrence spontaneously, in thought, of mental acts and affec- 
tions experienced in past life. Their appearance, however, 
though independent of personal volition, is not fortuitous, but 
is regulated by well-ascertained laws. 

2. Conditions of remembrance. — The generic conditions 
of remembrance, viz., the laws of association of ideas, have 
already been noted. It only remains to evolve their several 
forms, and to determine their psychologic import and rela- 
tions. 

The general principle involved is this : " All experience 
proves it to be a law of mind that one thought is so related 
to another that, when one is reproduced voluntarily or invol- 
untarily, it instantly recalls others in some way related to it." 
Our thoughts are not stored away in memory, as indepen- 
dent isolated entities, like ears of corn in a crib, but as chains 
bound together, link by link, according to determinate laws. 
Psychologists have sought to determine these laws and re- 
duce them to their ultimate principles, and various statements 
and reductions of them have been made ; practically, per- 
haps, the following is as satisfactory as any other, viz. : 

{a) Contiguity of time or place. The simple principle 
here involved is this : two objects or thoughts cognized in 
relations of contiguity of time or place, naturally tend to 
suggest or recall each other in memory. For example, the 
writer, when a boy of eleven years of age, was called upon to 
make a long journey alone, on horseback, over the then 
almost uninhabited prairies of Illinois. In connection with 
certain peculiar landmarks of lonely trees and isolated 
groves, certain trains of thought passed through his mind. 
Years elapsed ere he passed over that road again, and these 
trains of thought had long been forgotten, amid the sterner 
realities of manhood, until, at length, he looked upon those 
lonely trees and groves again, and the long-buried trains of 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 105 

boyish thought came back, fresh and vivid as things of yes- 
terday. Here the link was obviously simple contiguity of 
place. 

(b) Resemblance or contrast. A second law of associa- 
tion is based upon the correlative laws of resemblance and 
contrast. A face or a person seen to-day recalls by its re- 
semblance an acquaintance of other years ; so, on the other 
hand, one fact or object suggests or recalls another, in virtue 
of the strong contrast existing between them ; a very short 
man recalls a very tall one, and vice versa. Instances of both 
forms or modes of the law may readily be multiplied to any 
desirable extent. The relations of resemblance and contrast, 
though apparently diverse, are generically one, since the 
knowledge of contradictories is one. 

(c) Cause and effect. The third law of association may 
fitly be denominated the law of cause and effect, as it is 
based essentially upon that familiar relation. Some psy- 
chologists have preferred the wider terms reason and conse- 
quent, but the difference is really unimportant, since, in an 
ultimate analysis, cause and effect are the real elements in- 
volved. The presence of a cause or reason naturally sug- 
gests the idea of its effect or consequent, and vice versa. 

As we have before remarked, various attempts have been 
made to reduce these laws to a single generic form, with 
more or less of apparent success ; but one fatal defect attends 
every hypothesis thus far presented, namely : the proposed 
single law fails to account for the actual phenomena with 
the readiness and clearness that the separate laws do, and 
can only be applied to account for certain special cases, by 
the exercise of an amount of logical ingenuity not at the 
command of the tyro in psychology. The utility of the pro- 
posed reductions is not, therefore, very evident. 

^ II. Voluntary: Recollection. — Voluntary reproduction, 
or recollection, introduces into the problem of memory a new 
factor, the human will, which decisively changes its condi- 
tions and relations, and demands consequently explicit ex- 
amination. 



106 THE INTELLECT: 

1. Conditions of the process. — In remembrance, the stores 
of memory are recalled casually, in an order dependent, 
partly upon the subjective states, and partly upon the acci- 
dental objective relations of the personality ; but in recollec- 
tion, the attempt is made to recall such memories only as are 
adapted to the present wants of the consciousness. An 
analysis of an act of voluntary memory, or recollection, 
reveals the following elements, viz. : 

{a) A present conscious want or need of a particular fact 
or train of thought. 

(b) A consciousness, more or less distinct, that such a 
fact or train of thought is laid aside among the treasures of 
memory; and — 

(c) A voluntary nisus, or effort, to recall the desired fact 
or thought, by the aid of the laws of association of ideas. It 
is obvious that, without at least a partial actual grasping of 
the thing wanted, in memory, there could be no conscious- 
ness of its existence and no attempt to recall it. Nor is it 
difficult to account for the presence of this vague conscious- 
ness : the very mental necessity which demands the recall of 
the desired fact or thing, tends, in obedience to the laws of 
association and remembrance, to suggest it to the mind, and 
thus bring it to the notice of consciousness, and under the 
power of the will. 

2. Methods of recollection. — These vary widely with dif- 
ferent individuals, but are, in general, a voluntary application 
of the laws of association of ideas. Thus, for example, if we 
wish to recall the name of an individual, we may fix our 
thoughts upon the names of his friends, upon the places 
where we have met him, upon occurrences with which he has 
been connected ; or, failing these, if we remember the initial 
letter of his name, we may recall all the names we can recol- 
lect beginning with that letter, and so of other methods 
which it were idle to enumerate. The one principle common 
to them all is a voluntary application of the laws of associa- 
tion of ideas. 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 107 

Sec. III. — Power of Memory. 

^ I. Capacity of Memory. — There seems practically to be 
scarcely any limit to the capacity of memory. Seneca, the 
Roman philosopher, tells us that he could repeat two thousand 
names, read to him a single time, in the order in which they 
were given. Muretus tells us of a learned Corsican who 
actually repeated an almost incredible number of words, 
Latin, Greek, barbarous, significant and non-significant, dis- 
joined and connected, which were repeated to him only a 
single time ; and not only so, but he also repeated them in the 
alternate order, giving the first, third, fifth, and so on, with- 
out a single mistake. This man claimed that he could thus 
repeat thirty-six thousand words. It is related of the cele- 
brated Blaise Pascal, that, " until the decay of his health 
had impaired his memory, he forgot nothing of what he had 
done, read, or thought, in any part of his rational age." 
These are extraordinary cases, that scarcely recur in centu- 
ries, yet no observant student will fail to recall, in the circle 
of his own observation, instances of remarkable powers of 
memory, strikingly illustrating the topic under discussion. 

^ II. Varieties of Memory. — The varieties of memory are 
manifold, although they are the permutations of but a few 
simple elements. Some minds respond more readily to one 
law of association, and some to another ; while others re- 
spond with equal readiness to all. Some memories are 
marked by their great tenacity of retention, although their 
pl:ocesses may be slowly elaborated ; while others are quite 
as distinctly noticeable for their readiness and their unre- 
liable character. 

The memory of the youth differs in its qualities and char- 
acteristics from that of the adult, and both difi*er from the 
memory of the aged. These differences obviously depend 
chiefly upon the ' complex relations of the soul to the physi- 
cal organism, and are affected largely by its growth, maturity, 
and decay. 

Curious instances of partial memory sometimes present 



108 THE INTELLECT: 

themselves to the psychologist, in which certain special 
groups of facts are grasped eagerly, retained tenaciously, 
and reproduced readily, while others, seemingly more impor- 
tant, elude the mind altogether. Such cases must he ac- 
counted for in part by the influence of the laws of attention, 
and in part by personal idiosyncrasies, not as yet clearly 
comprehended. 

*f III. Is any Thing ever wholly forgotten ? — A question of 
some practical interest emerges here, namely : " Is any thing 
ever wholly forgotten ? " It is obvious, in the outset, that no 
absolute affirmative answer is possible ; but the fact must bo 
noted that "the preponderance of testimony is decidedly in 
favor of the negative hypothesis." I^umerous well-attested 
instances are on record of persons rescued from drowning, 
who, during the brief moments of strangulation preceding 
insensibility, recalled, as in a panoramic view, the whole rec- 
ord of their past lives, including incidents and acts forgot- 
ten for years. So, also, the celebrated Dr. Rush tells of Swed- 
ish and German immigrants to Pennsylvania, who, in middle 
life, lost all knowledge of their native languages, so that they 
could neither speak nor understand them ; but who, in the 
decrepitude of their second childhood, recurred to their long- 
lost native tongues, and who, in some cases, could then 
neither speak nor understand any other. These, and other 
similar cases that might be quoted, strongly confirm the hy- 
pothesis that nothing which man has ever known can be 
finally forgotten, and that the waters of oblivion are, infact^ 
as in form, a poet's dream. 

Sec. IY. — Cultivation of Memory. 

Any discussion of the phenomena of memory which fails 
to note its susceptibility to culture, is radically defective in 
view of its intrinsic importance as an essential element of 
mental power. It is true that the hypothesis has sometimes 
been advanced with much earnestness, that "great powers 
of memory are inconsistent with real mental strength or 
When, however, the facts are analyzed upon 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 109 

which the hypothesis rests, they indicate, fairly interpreted, 
nothing more than this, that great powers of memory may 
coexist with moderate powers of intellection, while no fact 
is better ascertained than that many of the greatest minds 
earth has ever produced were not less remarkable for their 
powers of memory than for other intellectual excellences. 
Their brilliant memories are ordinarily unnoticed, simply be- 
cause they are eclipsed by the magnificence of their higher 
rational faculties. 

^ I. Artificial Systems of Memory. — Mnemonics, or the 
science of memory, has at times attracted much attention, 
and various systems of artificial memory have been devised, 
based upon one or more of the laws of association of ideas, 
by which men have been enabled to remember more perfectly 
special facts or classes of facts ; but these special modes are 
not available for the ordinary uses of memory, and it may 
fairly be questioned whether equal care and pains devoted to 
the general cultivation of the faculty itself would not prac- 
tically yield more valuable results. 

^ II. True Principles involved in the Culture of Memory. — 
True scientific culture of the memory is based upon a thor- 
ough comprehension of its laws, especially of the laws of as- 
sociation, and upon an intelligent exercise or discipline of 
its powers. These two elements, in their complete synthesis, 
are indispensable to the perfection of the result. Science 
alone cannot make the artist, nor yet will mere muscular 
skill and flexibility of manipulation suffice ; so he that would 
develop to the utmost his powers of memory must first com- 
prehend its laws, and then reduce his knowledge to practice 
by untiring effort. One fact must not be overlooked : he who 
would have a good memory must trust it ; and not only so, he 
must compel it to respond to his demands upon it. He who 
trusts to pen or pencil, rather than to memory in its legitimate 
sphere, will soon have nothing else to rely upon. 



110 THE INTELLECT: 

CO]\"CEPTIO]^: ITS SECO^T ELEMEOT. 

IMAGINATION. 
Section I. — Nature axd Relations of the Imagination. 

^ I. Analysis of an Act of Imagination. — ^Imagination is, 
essentially, an act^ and not an affection. It grasps the mate- 
rials presented to it, holds them up in new lights and new- 
relations, combines and recombines them, seizes upon every 
single element presented to it in the complex wholes of per- 
ception, and evolves them anew in forms, relations, and com- 
binations, unknown in the actual world, and thus creates its 
own peculiar world of the ideal. 

^ n. Materials of Imagination. — For the materials neces- 
sary to its processes, imagination depends immediately upon 
memory, remotely upon perception. We imagine the absent^ 
not the present. We perceive the thing at which we look — 
we imagine the thing which we remember. Imagination, 
therefore, may without impropriety be defined to be, in its 
lowest sense, mental vision of the absent or the distant. In 
its higher sense, it may be defined to be mental vision of the 
ideal or possible^ as contradistinguished from the actual. 
The fact must, however, be distinctly noted, that imagination 
is incapable of absolute creation^ i. e., of originating new ma- 
terial.^ as well as new forms of thought. It cannot evolve a 
new element not derived, in fact or form, from perception 
through memory. 

^ III. Its Relations to other Faculties. — The relations of 
imagination to memory and perception have already been 
sufficiently declared. It remains only to note its relations to 
the processes of judgment and reasoning. For these, its 
office is to mediate the materials furnished by perception. 
The soul needs to know, not merely what is, in the limited 
sphere of cognition present to its senses, but also ichat may 
be, in the wider sphere of the ideal, in order to satiate its God- 
given thirst for the true, the beautiful, and the good. He, 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. m 

therefore, who speaks slightingly of imagination, only betrays 
his own ignorance of its real functions in the realms of 
thought, and of the glorious possibilities which it reveals to 
man. 

Sec. II. — Office of the Imagii^atioi?". 

^ I. To mediate the Form of the Percept. — This process 
has already been indicated in general terms, but must here 
be marked and discriminated more specifically. It presents 
itself, in the phenomena of mind, under two forms, depend- 
ing upon the nature of the materials used in the mental evo- 
lution, viz. : 

1. It i7ivolves or includes the formation of a true mental 
picture or representation of objects (i. e., of sensible objects) 
known in perception. — "We thus readily recall the face of an 
absent friend, a familiar landscape, or the parts of a complex 
machine ; and the remark has often been made, with a keen 
philosophic perception of this special function of imagination, 
that "a man can describe a landscape more graphically, 
from the vision of it in imagination, than from actual present 
perception of it." The reason is, imagination seizes upon 
precisely those salient features of it which are best fitted to 
represent it in words to a person who has never seen it, 
and omits all minor details which serve in the actual land- 
scape only to confuse and perplex him who attempts to 
describe it from his actual present perception of it. 

2. Jt involves or includes the formation of a notion or 
idea of supersensible objects and relations which do not 
admit of representation iii a true ideal or mental picture. — 
The line of demarcation is here so narrow between the im- 
aginative and the logical concept, that it is difficult to dis- 
criminate them, articulately ; nevertheless, the existence of a 
true imaginative concept is indisputable. Such ideals, as 
honor, courage, virtue, etc., etc., are too well known to need 
other than simple mention, in order to their recognition, and 
they are not, in any sense, mental pictures of sensible ob- 
jects ; nor are they, on the other hand, mere logical concepts 



112 THE INTELLECT : 

resulting from the abstract processes of the synthetic judg- 
ment. The absolute limitation of imagination to sensible 
objects, sometimes affirmed, cannot, therefore, be accepted as 
legitimate. The error probably originated in the fact that 
imagination, in the sense of a mental picture or vision of an 
object, is possible only of sensible objects. 

% II. To evolve from the World of the Actual given in Per- 
ception the World of the Ideal. — The range of thought here 
opened is a very wide one, including alike the dreams of the 
painter, the sculptor, the mechanist, the poet, the novelist, 
and the moralist, in a word — 

" All those charms and virtues which we dare 
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 
The unreached paradise of our despair." 

It touches every field of human thought, throws its re- 
splendent light around every human conception, glorifies 
alike the poet's dream of earth and the Christian's dream of 
heaven. It is an equally welcome visitant to the cottage of 
the peasant, the palace of the king, the study of the sage, 
and the cell of the devotee. It is equally indispensable to 
the highest results of mechanism, of art, of science, of litera- 
ture, of morality, and of Christianity. 

Sec. III. — Relations of the Ideal to the Real. 

^ I. Of tha Idea to its Object. — The problem of the rela- 
tion of an idea to its object has perplexed metaphysicians for 
ages, and has given rise to almost endless theories and dis- 
quisitions. Some have affirmed the identity of the two, 
making the idea nothing more than a sensible material im- 
age of the object, taken up by the organ of sense, and in 
some incomprehensible way cognized by it. Such theorizers 
strangely ignore the fact that the perception of one material 
object by the mind is just as incomprehensible as that of 
another, and that these figments of sensation, if their exist- 
ence were demonstrated, could solve none of the mysteries 
of the process. 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 113 

Others have affirmed that the idea or concept is a picture 
of the external object as it actually exists, independently of 
our perception of it. This hypothesis, however, cannot, in 
the present state of science, be maintained. Light or color, 
as an ohjective reality, and light or color as cognized by the 
soul, are two totally different things. Science is rapidly 
tending to a demonstration that the one is nothing more than 
a peculiar vibration of a medium (an aura, or ether) diffused 
through all space, a something which has no resemblance 
whatsoever to the subjective phenomena which we recognize 
in consciousness as light or color. 

The truth would seem to be, therefore, that the idea or 
concept is a simple mental picture of the percept, whose rela- 
tions to the external object we have already sought to deter- 
mine. In other words, the concept is a mental picture of the 
external object, not as it is in itself^ or per se, but as it is 
mediated hy the percept, 

^ II. Of the Ideal to Science. — The term science is here 
obviously taken in its most comprehensive sense; and the 
generic fact that demands discrete enunciation is, that im- 
agination is indispensable to the processes of true science. 
Mathematics may here be fitly taken as the analogue of all 
the sciences in this relation ; and the uses of imagination in 
its processes are so obvious as scarcely to need illustration. 
The most noticeable fact, for example, that attracts our at- 
tention, as we open a work on geometry and analyze its 
pages, is, that the points, lines, angles, curves, etc., etc., with 
which the geometer deals, are all ideal. The truth is self- 
evident that it is beyond the power of man to actually de- 
scribe a geometrical point, line, angle, or curve. Geometry 
as a science is, therefore, ^wre^y ideal ; and the same is true, 
if possible, in a still higher sense, of the calculus, which has 
been not unfitly denominated the poetry of mathematics. 
The same laws of evolution apply to philosophy, astronomy, 
and all the other sciences, though the facts may be less ob- 
trusive. The use of hypotheses in science may, in fact, be 
thus accounted for, and is itself an apt illustration of the 



114 THE INTELLECT: 

value of the ideal element in the evolution of the exact 
sciences. 

III. Of the Ideal to Art. — The term is here, likewise, used 
in its broadest generic sense, to include industry, mechanism, 
architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, and music. Into 
each and all of these the ideal enters as an element of the 
highest practical import, as ab once a stimulus and an aid to 
successful effort. The relation of the ideal to aesthetic art 
is so obvious that it needs no comment ; but its relations to 
mechanism and to practical industry are not less real nor 
less important. Take the inventor, for example, who seeks 
to apply the laws of IN'ature, by the aid of machinery, to pro- 
ductive use, and imagination, i. e., the constructive or crea- 
tive power of thought, is not less indispensable to him than 
it is to the poet. The imagination of Watt, the inventor of 
the steam-engine, was not less wonderful than that of Milton, 
albeit it found its exercise in conceiving in thought the rela- 
tions of boiler, cylinder, piston, lever, pulley, etc., etc., in that 
wonderful creation of mind, the steam-engine. The gTand 
creations of modern industry existed as ideals in the soul 
before they were actualized in the wood, the iron, and the 
brass, just as " Paradise Lost " existed in the imagination of 
the great poet before it was transferred to paper, or as the 
dome of St. Peter's dwelt a thing of beauty and sublimity 
in the soul of Michael Angelo before it spanned nave and 
transept in Rome's grandest temj)le. 

1 IV. Of the Ideal to Morals and Faith.—" The relations of 
the ideal to the real become yet more intensively important 
when we pass to the spheres of morals and faith, i. e., into 
those relations Avhich man as an intelligent moral agent sus- 
tains to his fellow-man and to his God." Here the soul, in its 
purest, noblest, loftiest flights, in its most earn6st efforts, and 
in its most glorious victories, is but struggling upward to an 
ideal, purer, nobler, higher, more sublime, than man has ever 
actualized — the ideal of God, and of the life of God — in the 
soul of man. It has been well said that no man is better 
than his faith, and it need hardly be added that his faith, in 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 115 

this sense, is but Hs ideal of humanity and God ; I say, of hu- 
manity and God, for not only are the terms strictly correla- 
tive in the spheres of morals and faith, but the correspond- 
ing fact must be noted that we conceive the infinite only in 
its correlation to the finite. 

It may not be amiss to add that imagination, in another 
aspect, is a powerful element in the moral and religious life 
of the individual. He who has but little power (like the 
man of feeble imagination) to individualize and actualize, in 
thought, the purely moral and spiritual relations of man, is 
necessarily a man of but feeble moral impulses and of waver- 
ing faith. On the contrary, the man who has the power of 
vitalizing and actualizing those conceptions — the purest and 
loftiest that ever move the soul — until they dwell within 
him with an intensity of life that overbears the lower and 
meaner impulses of the physical nature, dwells in love, for he 
dwells in God, and God in him. E'or is there room for the 
cavil here, that this is to idealize God and a future world ; 
for it is the resultant of a complementary truth, that we 
know even the material world only as we idealize it ; and 
that our perception of the spiritual world, through intuition, 
is just as direct, just as comprehensible, and just as valid, as 
our cognition of the material world through sensation. For, 
if man is half dust, and therefore allied to material things, 
he is half deity, and therefore allied to spiritual things. In 
the relations, therefore, of the material to the spiritual, im- 
agination finds its most glorious realm,, where, transcending 
reason in its loftiest flights, it dwells in light inefiable, hard 
by the throne of God and the Lamb. 

Sec. IY. — Is the Imaginatiois' a Creative Faculty? 

The question is often mooted. Is the imagination a crea- 
tive faculty ? Its solution is easy, if the fact is kept steadily 
in view that the terms " create " and " creation " are used in a 
double sense : 1. To indicate absolute creation both of mat- 
ter and form / and, 2. To indicate relative creation ; that is, 
the evolution of new forms from preexisting materials. In 



116 THE INTELLECT: 

the first sense of the term, it is obvious that imagination is 
not a creative faculty; it has no power to call into being 
totally/ new elements of thought. In this respect it cannot 
transcend the sphere of perception, through sensation and 
intuition, from which it derives all the elements of its grand 
creations. If we analyze, critically, the most aberrant fan- 
tasies of the dreamer or the madman, we shall fail to dis- 
cover any new element of thought whatsoever. 

In the second and derivative sense of the term " create," 
it is just as obvious that imagination is a creative faculty; 
and that the soul is filled with ideals^ of which the real has 
never furnished the pattern. IsTor is there room to say that 
such a limitation of imagination dwarfs it, and robs it of its 
brightest jewels. It does not, since it leaves it the three 
grand concepts of man, the universe, and God, as the inex- 
haustible factors of its glorious creations ; and eternity itself 
shall not suffice it for a duration in which it may exhaust 
their values, and sit down to weep, Alexander-like, because 
it has no more worlds to conquer. 

Sec. V. — CuLTUEE of the Imaginatioit. 

*lf I. Value of the Imagination. — In the light of the pre- 
ceding discussions, but little need, be said additionally, in ref- 
erence to the value of imagination as an element of thought ; 
he only is likely to undervalue it who is ignorant of its true 
relations to the higher processes of mind. That its functions 
may be abused, is the necessary correlate condition of its use 
as a human faculty. We know, alas ! by bitter experience, 
that there is no gift of God to man so pure, so noble, so ex- 
alted, or so perfect, that he cannot abuse it. Ordinarily, the 
liability to abuse is in direct proportion to the intrinsic value 
of the element when legitimately used. That imagination, 
therefore, is peculiarly liable to be abused, is only a demon- 
stration, on the one hand, of its intrinsic value, and, on the 
other, of the imperative necessity that its abuse should be 
forestalled and prevented by true scientific culture. 

\ II. Conditions of its Evolution and Perfection.— The im- 



ITS SECOND MO YEMENT— CONCEPTION. 117 

agination, like other faculties of the mind, is amenable to the 
influences of culture, and the results attained in any specific 
case will be in direct proportion : 

1. To the philosophic adaptation of the method of culture 
to the end proposed ; and — 

2. To the skill and perseverance with which the chosen 
methods are carried out in practice. 

In the first case, the philosophic educator will discriminate 
accurately between general and special culture. The wide 
range of the faculty itself, as indicated in our previous dis- 
cussions, should be a check upon the hasty inductions so fre- 
quently made, that this or that person has no imagination, 
because he has no taste for poetry, music, or some other 
aesthetic art. His imagination may be special^ and not gen- 
eral^ and in its own peculiar field may possess extraordinary 
power and fertility. True special education of the imagina- 
tion, philosophically considered, should be based upon the 
general^ and should be scientifically adapted to the special 
forms of the faculty which it is proposed to develop. He, 
for example, who would develop the aesthetic imagination, 
must study the masterpieces of poetry, painting, sculpture, 
architecture, music, etc., etc. ; while he who would cultivate 
a scientific or mechanical imagination, must familiarize him- 
self with the grand creations of this wonderful faculty in 
these scarcely less fruitful fields. 

^ in. Limits of its Capacity. — Here no limits can be fixed. 
God may have said to the human imagination, "Thus far 
shalt thou go, and no farther," but, if He has, we know not 
where He has fixed the line. Practically, to man, the ideal 
world is infinite in extent, as it is in beauty and richness. 



118 THE INTELLECT: 

COICEPTION: ITS THIRD ELEMEOT. 

THE SYNTHETIC JUDGMENT. , 
Preliminary Discussion. 
Summary of Results and Aiq^AXTSis of Relations. 

^ I. Incompleteness of the Ideal Concept. — The ideal 
concept, as coiitradistingmshed from the logical, is marked 
by its indimduality and consequent incompleteness. The 
imagination deals exclusively with the concrete ; it does not 
and cannot represent the abstract or general. Thus I can 
imagine this, that, or the other individual man, readily and 
exactly, but I cannot imagine.^ though I can conceive^ the 
genus man apart from any individual man. Here the pri- 
mary distinction between the ideal and the logiccd concept 
emerges at once into consciousness. 

^ II. Numerical Variety and Complexity of our Percepts. — 
The numerical variety of our individual percepts is almost 
endless, and the attempt to grasp them all by simple enu- 
meration and discrete examination would be almost fruitless, 
and quite hopeless. Life is too short and memory too weak 
for the multiplied burdens which must rest upon them, if the 
ideal concept were the ultimate form under which mind must 
deal with, and act upon, the wealth of material it acquires in 
perception. Memory must sink back overwhelmed, and rea- 
son recoil in despair from the attempts to grasp this indefi- 
nite and ever-increasing multitude of singular objects. 

^ III. Influence of Poverty of Language. — Were it possi- 
ble, which it is not, for memory and reason to deal with this 
multitude of percepts in their individuality and isolation, 
there is another and perhaps insuperable difficulty in the 
way, viz., the poverty of language. It would be impracti- 
cable, if not impossible, to supply individual^ i. e., proper 
names, for the multitude of objects known in perception. 
Without endorsing the more than problematic hypothesis 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. HQ 

that man can only think in words (an hypothesis sufficiently 
disproved by the fact that men born deaf and dumb do 
think prior to education, technically so called, and hence prior 
to any knowledge of words), the truth may safely be admit- 
ted that continuous, extended, and fruitful trains of thought 
are necessarily mediated by words, or language, and that 
every individual percept must sooner or later be fixed by an 
appropriate sign, in order to its preservation in memory, its 
representation in imagination, and its analytic development 
by the varied processes of the reasoning faculty proper. 
Hence we infer the necessity of a new mental evolution to 
mediate between the individuality of the ideal concept and 
the generality of the processes of analytic reasoning. 

^ IV. Evolution of the Processes of the Synthetic Judg- 
ment. — Corresponding to this a priori necessity of thought, 
we recognize the fruitful actual processes of what has been 
termed the synthetic judgment, viz., abstraction^ generaliza- 
tion^ and classification^ whereby the mind is able, from its 
multitude of individual percepts, to evolve a comparatively 
limited number of genera and species^ and thus reduce their 
multiplicity and variety to the unity of a few comprehensible 
logical concepts. The poverty of language is, at the same 
time, obviated by our power of applying a few specific 
names to many individuals, and a few generic names to many 
species. 

Section I. — Absteaction. 

^ I. Analysis of the Process. — The very familiarity of 
this process is the sole cause of the difficulty that seemingly 
inheres in the statement of it. Every thoughtful student 
will readily recognize it among the daily phenomena of his 
own experience, so soon as the meanings of the terms used 
are brought home to his consciousness. In considering any 
complex object of perception, we are conscious of a tendency 
to fix the attention upon one attribute, or set of attributes, to 
the neglect or exclusion of others, equally or perhaps more 
important intrinsically. So, also, if several objects are pre- 
sented to us simultaneously or successively, we naturally fix 



120 THE INTELLECT: 

our attention upon those attributes in which they agree, or 
vice versa, and neglect or exclude the rest. In either case 
we realize the process of abstraction in our actual conscious- 
ness. Metaphysicians have refined upon the question wheth- 
er the attributes attended to, or those excluded, are the ones 
that are properly abstracted ; but the question has little or 
no significance, and is wholly one of propriety of language. 

^ II. Final Cause and Eelations of the Process. — The final 
cause of this process is, obviously, the simplification of the 
processes of human thought, by the rejection of useless fac- 
tors, which do not vary or afiect the results reached in the 
particular instance. Without at all endorsing the popular 
heresy, that "the mind can attend to but one thing at a 
time," the fact may be postulated that the clearness and 
precision of our mental operations is, in proportion, inversely 
to the number of factors involved. Abstraction enables us, 
in this respect, to reduce any given problem to its minimum, 
by exscinding all attributes or conditions not relevant to its 
solution. This is an item of no slight importance in the de- 
velopment of thought and the complex evolutions of science. 

Sec. II. — Geneealizatioj^-. 

^ I. Analysis of the Process. — Abstraction, as we have 
seen, is not in itself an end, but a means to an end. In its 
first and mediate result, it leads to the formation of a pecu- 
liar class of words, called abstract words. Technically, they 
are nouns, i. e., names, but they difier from ordinary nouns 
in this respect, that they are not the names of things or ob- 
jects, but of attributes or properties of things. We reach 
them by the processes of abstraction described in the prcr 
vious section, i. e., by neglecting certain attributes and fix- 
ing the attention on one or more of the remainder, the color, 
for example ; and we then generalize this concept by the rec- 
ognition of the fitness of the term representing it, to be ap- 
plied as a common name to an attribute inhering in many 
difierent bodies. We thus pass from the concrete colored 
object to the abstract noun color, or the abstract adjective 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 121 

colored ; and then, extending our thought one step farther, by 
a process of simple comparison of object with object, we at- 
tain to the conception that this abstract name is generic^ 
i. e., that it represents a class of objects which, however much 
they may differ in other respects, agree in this, that they pos- 
sess color. We have thus taken a second decisive step in 
the process of systematizing and simplifying our knowledge. 
^11. Final Cause and Relations of the Process. — The 
final cause of the process of generalization has been already 
indicated. It is a second approximation to unity of thought, 
by seizing upon an abstract term representing a single at- 
tribute of a concrete object, and applying it as a common 
name or mark to many objects possessing this common at- 
tribute. A basis is thus laid for the next step in this logical 
process; namely, classification, which seizes upon the gen- 
eralized abstract noun, as a mark or indice of separation, and 
divides all known objects, under the canon of contradiction, 
as possessing or not possessing this attribute. 

Sec. III. — Classificatioi^. 

^ I. Analysis of the Process. — The process of classifica- 
tion, whether popular or scientific, is simple and direct. It 
seizes upon some attribute recognized as equally belonging 
to a plurality of objects, and reduces them to unity by their 
synthesis under this name taken as a common appellative. In 
the popular process, the similarity recognized is usually in- 
dependent of any underlying philosophical principle, and the 
unity attained is empirical only. In the scientific process, 
the mind seizes upon some essential attribute or attributes, 
and applies that (or them) as a touchstone to the successive 
objects cognized, ranging under the proposed class all such 
as possess the common mark, however much they may differ 
in other respects, and excluding all others, however much 
they may resemble these in their other attributes. For ex- 
ample, if we start with the single word " thing" or " things," 
and conjoin to it the single attribute "existence," we at once 
include under it all material existence whatsoever. Jf we 



122 THE INTELLECT: 

conjoin to that a second attribute, " organic," we exclude 
from the new or derivative class all inorganic things. K 
we conjoin a third attribute, "living," we again exclude a 
class, viz., unvitalized or dead organisms. If we conjoin a 
fourth attribute, " animate," we exclude the whole vegetable 
world. If we conjoin a fifth attribute, " rational," we again 
exclude more than a moiety of the whole. The process may 
thus be continued, in thought at least, till a final class is 
reached that shall consist of only a single individual. In 
this process, beginning with the highest class, i. e., with 
thing, being, existence, we denominate this the summum 
genus, predicating of it only a single attribute, viz., bare 
existence. When, however, we predicate a second attribute, 
we part this summum genus into the two proximate species, 
viz., organic and inorganic beings, existences, or things. 
Neglecting the second for the time being, we predicate of 
the first, i. e., of organic being, a third attribute, and thus 
part this proximate species of being, which now becomes a 
genus, into two proximate species, viz., living and not-living 
organisms. Again, neglecting the second, and applying the 
fourth attribute to the genus " living organisms," we part it 
into two proximate species, animate and inanimate ; and so 
to the last, i. e., to a class containing only a single individ- 
ual, which is the infima species. 

Three distinct derivative concepts emerge from this anal- 
ysis, viz., the extension, the comprehension, and the denomi- 
nation of concepts, which will be considered in detail in the 
sequel, but which must be, meantime, distinctly noted here, 
viz. : 

1. Extension. — This refers to and expresses the number 
of individuals or proximate species which a genus may in- 
clude. 

2. Comprehension. — This relates to and expresses the 
number of marks or attributes used to define a genus ; as 
the attribute " existence " used to mark the summum genus 
"being "or "thing." 

3. Denomination,— Thi^ refers to and expresses the pro- 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 123 

cesses of naming a genus or species according to the marks 
or signs which part it from its proximate genus, on the one 
hand, and its proximate species, on the other. 

^ II. General Principles of Classification. — Certain gen- 
eral principles and relations emerge from this analysis, viz. : 

1. Our knowledge, in all cases, begins with the concrete ; 
i. e ., with the individual person or thing. We first know, 
not man as a species, but this or that particular man. The 
child who first knows pa and ma, is apt to apply those names 
to the next man and woman it sees. 

2. Our earlier classifications are necessarily rude, con- 
founding genera and species, including many things that 
should be excluded, and, vice versa, excluding many things 
that should be included. 

3. The number of conceivable species between the sum- 
mum genus and the infima species is indefinite, if not infi- 
nite. We cannot, therefore, starting from the summum 
genus, actually reach the infima species. 



CONCEPTION: SYNTHESIS OF ELEMENTS. 

THE CONCEPT. 

Section I. — Its IsTatuee and Relations. 

^ I. Relation of the Concept to the Percept. — The rela- 
tion of the concept to the percept has been incidentally de- 
clared in the preceding discussions ; distinctness, however, 
demands their formal reenunciation here. Its relations may 
be marked as follows : 

1. In time, the concept is posterior to the percept, inas- 
much as it is dependent upon it for its material. 

2. In extension, it is superior to it ; i. e., it is applicable to 
many individuals, while every percept is, necessarily, indi- 
vidual. 

3. In comprehension, it is inferior to it ; i. e., more marks 
or attributes are united in a concept representing an indi- 



124 THE INTELLECT: 

vidual, or thing, than are included in the concept of the 
species containing that individual, or thing. 

4. It is dependent upon it for representation in imagina- 
tion. That faculty can grasp and represent only the con- 
crete, and wo^ the abstract — the individual, 2in.dinot the general 
— this or that man, and not simply man as a species. But the 
first terms of these several couplets are distinctively percepts, 
the second, concepts; the latter are, therefore, dependent 
upon the former for representation in imagination. 

1" n. Equivocal Use of the Term Concept. — The term 
concept has been used in a variety of senses and with diverse 
limitations by different authors ; and, from the poverty of 
language, the same author is compelled to use the term as the 
representative of different mental entities, as the imaginative 
and logical concepts. It is in this treatise used to express : 

1. The percept as simply reproduced in memory. 

2. As represented in imagination ; and — 

3. As logically evolved under the critical forms of the 
synthetic judgment, conditioned upon the processes of the 
imagination. 

It is obvious that this threefold use involves a recognition 
of a generic and specific relation between the three forms, in 
which the last, as including both the others, alone expresses 
the idea in its generic completeness. 

Sec. II. — PowEES and Properties op Concepts. 

The general properties of concepts, viz., extension, inten- 
sion, and denomination, have already been noted, but may 
fitly receive more discrete examination here. 

^ I. Extension of the Concept.— Division. — 1. Its relations. 
Extension has already been defined to be the relation of the 
concept to the number of individuals or species to which it 
may legitimately be applied. If we fix our thought upon 
the summum genus, that is, simple existence, it obviously 
includes all things, God and the universe, taken in their 
widest, i. e., in their absolute sense. On the other hand, in 
the infima species, the concept includes only individuals. 



i 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION". 125 

which agree in the common possession of all conceivable at- 
tributes of being. In the summum genus, therefore, exten- 
sion is at its maximum, while in the infima species it is at 
its minimum. 

2. Its resultant process. Division. — This consists in the 
enumeration of the various coordinate species of which a 
proximate genus is composed. This process is one of much 
importance in the evolutions of science, and especially of 
natural history, where it receives its fullest and richest de- 
velopment. The rules governing this process may be stated 
as follows : 

(a) The division must be made according to some single 
definite principle or ground. 

{h) The constituent species, or dividing members, must 
exclude one another ; and — 

(c) The sum of the dividing members must exactly equal, 
taken together, the concept divided. 

The reason of these rules is so obvious as scarcely to re- 
quire discussion. Violation of the first involves utter failure 
of the entire process, and inextricable confusion of terms. 
Violation of the second involves the absurdity of cross-classi- 
fication. Violation of the third gives us a whole unequal to 
the sum of all its parts. 

% II. Intension of the Concept.— Definition. — Under the 
intension of the concept are included all questions of the 
comprehension and definition of the terms used. 

1. Comprehension. — This, as we have previously noted, 
expresses the number of marks or attributes which distin- 
guish a species from its proximate and remote genera. It 
must be discriminated from its proximate genus by at least 
one attribute, and from its remote genus by two or more. 
The intension of a concept is thus at its maximum in the in- 
fima species, and its minimum in the summum genus, and is, 
therefore, in inverse proportion to its extension. From this 
stand-point, again, it becomes obvious that, practically, if not 
theoretically, the infima species must coincide with the indi- 
vidual, or thing. 



126 THE INTELLECT: 

2. Definition of the concept. — TMs is nothing more than 
a formal enunciation of the actual intension of the concept, 
and is usually exjyessed, logically, by assigning the proxi- 
mate genus which includes the concept to be defined, and the 
specific difference which separates it from that genus. Its 
rules may be enunciated as follows : 

(a) A definition must enumerate all the essential attri- 
butes of the concept, and none other. 

{U) A definition must he adequate^ i. e., it must be nar- 
row enough to exclude all species below, and wide enough to 
include all genera above. The fact must here be remem- 
bered distinctly that intension and extension are in inverse 
proportion to each other ; that, in the infima species, inten- 
sion is at its maximum, and extension at its minimum ; and 
that, in the summum genus, extension is at its maximum, and 
intension at its minimum — consequently, the comprehension 
of a genus is less, i. e., narrower, than that of its proximate 
species. 

(c) A definition must he positive^ since the number of 
negative determinants is, or may be, infinite. 

^ III. Denomination of the Concept. — ^A concept is not 
complete until it is fixed in an appropriate mark or name. 
Until this is done, it is transient, and liable at any time to be 
lost from consciousness and memory. When, however, it is 
fixed in an appropriate mark, or name, it becomes, like the 
crude bullion under the processes of the mint, ready for im- 
mediate practical use, without the necessity of reexamining 
the original processes by which it was first evolved. The 
discussion, technically, of names as such, is grammatical and 
logical, rather than psychological, and must, therefore, be dis- 
counted here. It suffices us to show the general relations of 
names and language to the processes of thought ; for, while 
it must be admitted that thought is possible without words, 
yet the truth is obvious that, apart from language, the pro- 
cesses of thought must be narrow and imperfect. 



I 



ITS SECOND MOVEMENT— CONCEPTION. 127 

Sec. in. — ^Real Significance and Value of the 
Concept. 

Three general theories of the significance and value of the 
concept have emerged in the process of the evolution of the 
science of psychology; namely, realism, nominalism, and 
conceptualism. 

% I. Theory of Realism. — This asserts a real existence or 
entity in ]SJ"ature, corresponding to the concept, notion, or 
universal term; i. e., it asserts that there is, in l^ature, a real 
archetype, or idea, or entity, corresponding to the general con- 
cept m«^— differing from the concept of this or that particu- 
ular man known in perception. This strange doctrine was, 
perhaps, a legitimate outgrowth of Plato's doctrine of ideas. 

^ II. Theory of H"ominalism. — Reacting from the mani- 
fest absurdity of realism, as thus discretely stated, psychol- 
ogists passed to the corresponding extreme, and asserted 
that the concept is simply a name borrowed or abstracted 
from some concrete individual percept, and applied by ac- 
commodation to other percepts ; and then, by m fiction of the 
imagination, taken as a representative idea equally applicable 
to any one or all of the associated or related percepts. This 
theory deprives the concept of all real content, except in so 
far as it escapes utter emptiness, by appropriating the act- 
ual content of some individual or concrete percept. 

^ III. Theory of Conceptualims. — This is obviously an 
attempt to mediate between these almost equally absurd ex- 
tremes. It admits, with the realist, that the concept repre- 
sents something more than an empty name ; and, with the 
nominalist, that it is not the representative of an indepen- 
dent self-existent entity. It, therefore, postulates it as the 
representative of certain qualities or attributes existing si- 
multaneously in two or more objects of perception, i. e., it pos- 
tulates the concept as the representative of a real relative, 
but not of a real absolute, existence. The genus man exists 
in the perceived facts of the existence of this, that, and the 
other individual man. 



128 THE INTELLECT: 

^ lY. Real Import of the Controversy. — It should be 
observed that the foregoing theories are designedly stated in 
their ultimate antithetic forms, and that all minor forms are 
neglected, simply from the fact that the underlying essential 
principle is the only element of real import in the contro- 
versy. Here, as usual, there is a germ of truth underlying 
both extremes. The realist is right in affirming that genera 
and species are something more than mere names / while the 
nominalist is just as certainly right in affirming that they 
have no independent existence as entities apart from the ex- 
istence of the individuals composing them. The concept, or 
general term, really represents the perceived relations be- 
tween the individual objects of perception, in virtue of their 
possessing certain common attributes. This relation is not, 
of course, an entity^ nor yet is it a mere Jiction of the imagi- 
nation, but a real perception^ not less valid than the percep- 
tion of the several individual objects on which, in fact, it rests. 

This suggests a final problem, viz.. Are our concepts, as 
such, true or false ? A little consideration will, perhaps, 
solve all the real difficulties of this problem. So far as con- 
cepts are, or are designed to be, representations of reality, 
they may be said to be true or false, in proportion to their 
agreement or disagreement with the archetypal object ; but, 
so far as they are representative of the ideal only, they can 
be neither true nor false. 



THE INTELLECT: ITS THIRD MOVEMENT. 

BBLIEF. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

GEKEEAIi AxAIiYSIS MSD ClASSIFICATIOI?". 

^ I. Summary of Results reached in Perception and Con- 
ception. — The results of the mental processes thus far inves- 
tigated may briefly be summed up as follows : Perception, 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 129 

through its twofold movement of sensation and intuition, re- 
veals to us the world of the actual^ not only under the forms 
of matter, but of spirit as well. Our knowledge of the latter 
through intuition is as immediate and direct as our knowl- 
edge of the former through sensation. Conception reveals to 
us the world of the ideal^ making known to us the possible 
in all its varied forms and relations. But mind cannot rest 
in perception and conception, it seeks another and a higher 
sphere than either the actual known in perception, or the 
ideal known in conception ; it seeks to know the true. To 
this end, it not only diligently compares the actual with the 
ideal, but it also compares idea with idea, and concept with 
concept, in order to evolve the true in all its native beauty 
and excellence, as the final cause of all intellection. 

^ II. Evolution of the Processes of the Reason. — The logi- 
cal concept in its perfected form is not in itself an end^ but 
only a means to an ulterior end. The soul seeks, as the final 
cause of all its processes, to reduce the variety and multi- 
plicity of its percepts to unity. It makes its first approxima- 
tion by the processes of the synthetic judgment ; but our con- 
cepts, however generalized, are yet multiple and diverse, and 
the same psychologic necessity which impelled it to seek the 
reduction of the multiplicity of perception to the unity of 
conception, necessitates another and higher movement. The 
principle of this new movement is still comparison^ or the 
process of judgment^ but it now assumes the analytic rather 
than the synthetic form, and decomposes our complex con- 
cepts in order to evolve from their essential elements a still 
higher unity. 

^ III. Analysis of the Reasoning Process. — ^Reasoning 
involves two elements, namely : 

1. Analysis, or the separation of a complex whole into its 
integrant elements ; and — 

2. Comparison, in order to the determination of the agree- 
ment or wow-agreement of the related concepts. 

This process is, in general, the converse of that involved 
in synthetic judgment, though the fact must be noted here. 



130 THE INTELLECT: 

that no mental process, so to speak, dwells alone, or exists 
pure and simple, unmodified by other elements. The pro- 
cesses of conception, as previously detailed, involved analytic 
elements, which, although necessarily ignored in our analy- 
sis, were yet indispensable adjuncts of the movement. 

% IV. Forms of the Reasoning Process. — The process of 
reasoning presents itself under two forms, which may be as- 
sumed as generic, viz. : 

1. The judgment^ or proposition^ whose essential elements 
are a subject, predicate and copula; and — 

2. The syllogism, or chain of reasoning, which consists 
essentially of three judgments, or propositions, so arranged or 
related that the third is an inference from the other two. 

It is obvious that the two forms of reasoning thus 
enounced difier from each other, logically, in the fact that 
the conclusion in the one case is immediate / in the other, 
mediate, 

^ V. Its Resultant Product, Belief. — ^Every act of rea- 
soning results in a belief, or a faith. This may, at first 
thought, seem paradoxical, in view of the fact that many acts 
of reasoning lead to a disbelief in the proposition offered for 
our credence ; but this objection disappears at once when 
the fact is remembered that disbelief of one proposition, by 
the law of excluded middle, necessitates positive belief or 
faith, in its converse. For example, I can only disbelieve 
the hypothesis that the soul is mortal, like the body, on con- 
dition that I believe the converse, that the soul is immortal. 
All reasoning, therefore, which does not result in faith, i. e., 
in some faith, is fruitless. 

BELIEF. 
CHAPTER I.— JUDGMENTS, OR PROPOSITION'S. 

Section I. — An^ajlysis of Judgments. 

In the investigation of the operations of the judging fac- 
ulty, or reason, the fact that mental processes are more tan- 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 131 

gible and important realities than mental faculties becomes 
obtrusively" evident. So long as we had to do with sensation, 
memory, and imagination, the idea of a special faculty seems 
to be obtrusive ; but when we consider intuition and the pro 
cesses of reasoning, whether synthetic or analytic, it is far 
more difficult to fasten our thought upon the concept of 
special faculties. Intuition and reason seem to be rather es- 
sential functions of consciousness than special faculties of 
mind — a fact which, we think, justifies us in treating of pro- 
cesses rather than of faculties. 

No mental act whatever is more familiar than a judg- 
ment ; it enters implicitly, at least, into every mental pro- 
cess, and needs only to be named, to be realized in conscious- 
ness and comprehended. It is only necessary, therefore, to 
consider the elements of a judgment, or proposition ; viz., the 
subject, the predicate, and the copula, discretely, and to 
evolve their several relations. A judgment is nothing more 
than a comparison of two concepts. 

^ I. The Subject. — In investigating a judgment, the sub- 
ject, both logically and chronologically, demands attention 
first. It may be defined to be, a concept of which some- 
thing is affirmed or denied. It is obviously, for the time 
being, the immediate and special object of thought or atten- 
tion ; and is, technically and necessarily, a noun^ or name, or 
some word or words which, for the time being, represent a 
noun. The subject, as a concept, may be marked by a name, 
or by any collocation of words which may serve to bring 
definitely before the mind the concept intended ; hence one 
sentence, or proposition, maybe made the subject of another. 
It is hardly necessary to add that any form of concept what- 
ever may be used as the subject of a proposition, whether it 
represent the actual or the ideal. 

\ II. The Predicate. — This, like the subject, is a concept, 
but, unlike it, is, ordinarily at least, not a noun grammatically 
considered, but an adjective, i. e., an attribute of a noun, 
which is declared to be congruent or non-congruent with the 
subject considered, pro tempore^ as a substance capable of 



132 THE INTELLECT: 

possessing attributes. The relation of subject and predicate 
may, however, seemingly be allowed greater latitude than 
the simple affirmation or denial of the relations of substance 
and attribute. We may, obviously, predicate of a subject 
three things, viz. : 

1. What it is ; i. e., we may predicate its essence, or iden- 
tity. 

2. What it does ; i. e., we may predicate its acts ; and — 

3. What qualities it possesses ; i. e., we may predicate its 
attributes. But, after all, essence, or identity, and acts, as 
predicables, come under the relations of attributes, generi- 
cally considered. The discrete investigation of predicables 
belongs to logic rather than to psychology, and must, there- 
fore, be discounted here. 

*[[ III. The Copula. — The copula, or connective of a judg- 
ment, is the word or words which declare the congruence or 
non-congruence of the predicate with the subject, and is, ei- 
ther explicitly or implicitly, some mode of the verb " to be," 
since all judgments may be reduced to the generic form, " A 
^5, or is not, B." As a necessary resultant of this statement, 
or fact rather, there emerges at once a necessary ambiguity 
in the copula, namely, an apparent double affirmative, viz. : 

1. The affirmation of the actual existence of the subject ; 
and — 

2. The affirmation of its congruence or non-congruence 
with the predicate. For example, I say, " Robinson Crusoe 
was wrecked on an uninhabited island ; " or, " The phoenix is 
a beautiful bird," etc. In both cases alike, the copula carries 
with it the manifest assumption of the real existence of the 
subject, although no intelligent man would understand me to 
affirm the real existence of either Robinson Crusoe or the 
phoenix. This ambiguity is at once avoided by the recogni- 
tion of the fact that the whole force of the copula, in a logi- 
cal judgment, is exhausted in affirming the congruence or 
iion-congruence of the predicate with the subject ; the actual 
existence of either, as a fact, must be determined by indepen- 
dent evidence. 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 133 

It is obvious that the agreement or disagreement of a sub- 
ject and predicate in a simple judgment is, logically, im- 
mediate, and it is thus distinguished from the syllogism in 
which the conclusion is mediate. 

Sec. II. — Pbopeeties of Judgments. 

Judgments, like concepts, possess certain properties or 
peculiarities which require discrete enunciation. Any analy- 
sis of our actual judgments, as present in consciousness, 
reveals three prominent properties, viz.: 1. Quantity; 2. 
Quality; and, 3. Modality. 

^ I. Their Quantity. — In the first case, we distinguish, 
obtrusively, two generic forms of judgments diifering from 
each other in extension; as, All A is B, and Some A is B. 
In the first, the affirmation is universal, or without limit ; in 
the second, the application of the predicate is restricted to 
some indefinite or definite part of A. Logicians distinguish 
a third form ; as, John is a man, where the subject is singu- 
lar. The first form has been denominated universal, the 
second particular, and the third singular. It is obvious, 
however, that a singular judgment is only a special form of 
the universal, since the predicate is applied to the whole of 
the subject ; this class, therefore, may be discounted as use- 
less. 

^ II. Their Quality. — A second obtrusive distinction is 
manifest in the quality of judgments. Some are affirmative, 
declaring the congruence of the subject and predicate ; the 
rest are negative, declaring their ^o/^-congruence. Hence we 
have a second division of judgments, into affirmative and 
negative. 

% III. Derivative Classification, — From the synthesis of 
judgments, considered in their duplicate relations of quantity 
and quality, four distinct forms emerge, viz. : 

(A), Universal affirmatives; as, all A is B. 

(E), Universal negatives ; as, no A is B. 

(I), Particular affirmatives ; as, some A is B. 

(O), Particular negatives ; as, some A is not B. 



134 



TEE INTELLECT: 



Other secondary forms have been evolved, which need 
not be noted here. Logicians, for their own convenience, 
have agreed to symbolize these forms, as indicated above, by 
the vowels A, E, I, and O, and by these symbols they will 
be referred to here, as they are in all works on logic. 

% IV. Their Modality. — Another distinction in judg- 
ments remains to be noted, viz., their modality, dependent 
upon their mode of statement : 

1. Categorical judgments, i. e., judgments in which the 
affirmation of the congruence or non-congruence of the predi- 
cate with the subject is stated simply and unconditionally, 
i. e., categorically ; and — 

2. Hypothetical or conditional judgments, i. e., judgments 
in which the congruence or non-congruence of the predicate 
is expressed hypothetically or conditionally ; as. If it does 
not rain, the day will be pleasant. 

Sec. III. — Oppositioi^^ of Judgments. 

^ I. Forms of Opposition, or Contrariety. — From the four 
primary forms of judgment, viz.. A, E, I, and O, there result 
the general principles of opposition or contrariety of judg- 
ments, and the resulting doctrines of inference. The relations 
of contrariety have been expressed to the eye in the follow- 
ing diagram; or, to interpret the diagram, we recognize 
four kinds of opposition, or contrariety, viz. : 



Contrary. 




Subcontrary. 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 135 

1. Contraries^ i. e., a universal affirmative (A) opposed 
to a universal negative (E). 

2. Contradictories^ i. e., a universal affirmative (A) op- 
posed to a particular negative (O) ; or a universal negative 
(E) opposed to a particular affirmative (I). 

3. Suhcontraries^ i. e., a particular affirmative (I) op- 
posed to a particular negative (O). 

4. Subaltern, i. e., a universal affirmative (A) opposed 
(technically) to a particular affirmative (I) ; or a universal 
negative (E) opposed (technically) to a particular negative 
(O). 

^ II. General Laws of Opposition, or Contrariety. — The 
general laws of contrariety may be stated as follows : 

1. Contraries, viz. : (A) and (E) cannot both be true at 
the same time, but may both be false ; as, all men are learned 
(A), no man is learned (E). 

2. Contradictories, viz. : (A) and (O), or (E) and (I), can- 
not both be true or both be false at the same time. One 
must be true by the law of excluded middle. For example, 
all men are learned (A), and some men are not learned (O). 

3. Subcontraries, viz. : (I) and (O) may both be true, 
but cannot both be false at the same time ; as, some men are 
learned (I), and some men are not learned (O). 

4. Subalterns, viz. : (A) and (I), or (E) and (O). Of these 
the law is, that if the universal is true, the particular must 
be true also ; and, vice versa, if the particular is false, the 
universal must be false also. 



Supplementary Topic. 
All Concepts involve a PEnvnirvE Judgment. 

It is obvious, from the preceding discussions, that, al- 
though a logical judgment is a synthesis of concepts, yet a 
primitive act of judgment is necessarily involved in the evo- 
lution of every logical concept. Here, apparently, we are in- 
volved in an absurdity, making (as we do) the concept the 
essential element in every act of judgment, and yet postu- 



136 THE INTELLECT: 

lating a prior act of judgment as a condition precedent to the 
existence of the concept. This mystery, however, disappears 
when we distinguish between primitive and logical judg- 
ments. The former class is based upon sensation and intui- 
tion, the latter class is based upon conception. The one 
deals with the elements of thought^ the other with developed 
thought. The contradiction is, therefore, only apparent, and 
not real. 

CHAPTER IL— THE SYLLOGISM. 
Sectio:n- I. — A]N-Ai.Ysis OF THE Syllogism. 

T I. Mediate Reasoning. — Every valid mediate argument 
may be reduced to a syllogism or series of syllogisms depend- 
ing upon the number of premises or steps by which the con- 
clusion is reached. If it is mediated by two premises, or 
propositions, it may be reduced to the form of a regular syl- 
logism ; as, all men are mortal ; John is a man : therefore, 
John is mortal — or, in a generic form, all A is B ; C is A : 
therefore, C is B. In the latter example. A, B, and C, are 
simple concepts of any content whatsoever. 

% II. Analysis of the Syllogism. — A slight analysis of 
this typical syllogism discloses two generic facts, viz. : 

1. That every syllogism contains three and but three 
terms, or concepts, represented above by A, B, and C. These 
terms are called respectively the major, minor, and middle 
terms. 

2. That every syllogism contains three and but three 
propositions, or judgments ; called, respectively, the major 
and minor premises, and the conclusion. In the major prem- 
ise, the major and middle terms are compared ; in the minor 
premise, the minor and middle terms ; and in the conclusion, 
the minor and major terms. The middle term is, therefore, 
nothing more than a common measure interposed between 
the major and minor terms, to ascertain their congruence or 
non-congruence with each other. The mathematical equiva- 
lent of this principle is found in the well-known axiom, 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 137 

that "things equal to the same thing are equal to each 
other." The logical postulate, like the mathematical, is self- 
evident, and needs neither elucidation nor demonstration. 

The inference, or conclusion, in a true syllogism is neces- 
sary. If the premises be admitted, the conclusion cannot be 
denied ; we may, therefore, argue from the truth of the prem- 
ises to the truth of the conclusion, or from the known falsity 
of the conclusion to the falsity of one or both of the premises. 
It is obvious that the truth of the major and minor premises, 
respectively, is simply a question of fact, to be determined, 
like any other question of fact, by appropriate evidence ; the 
truth of the conclusion, on the other hand, is determined im- 
mediately by the correlation of the premises. 

Sec. II. — Laws of the Syllogism. 

The laws of the syllogism are simple and definite, and 
result necessarily from the principles already evolved. They 
may be enounced as follows : 

1. A syllogism must contain three terms ^ and no more. — 
If four or more terms are used, no middle term would appear 
as a common measure, and, consequently, no conclusion could 
be reached. 

2. A syllogism must contain three judgments^ and no 
more^ for a like reason. 

3. The middle term must he distributed (i. e., taJcen uni- 
versally) in, at least^ one of the premises. — The reason of 
this rule is obvious ; the two extremes, i. e., the major and 
minor terms, must be severally compared with it ; and, in one 
case or the other, it must needs be taken in its widest sense, 
otherwise we cannot be sure that both have been compared 
with identically the same common measure. 

4. One premise at least must he affirmative ; otherwise 
there can be, in fact, no application of the middle term as a 
common measure. To affirm that neither the major nor minor 
term agrees with the middle term, is to postulate nothing 
whatsoever of their congruence or non-congruence with each 
other. 



138 THE INTELLECT: 

5. The conclusion must follow the weaker premise, — ^A 
negative is weaker than an affirmative, and a particular than 
a universal. It follows, therefore — 

(a) That when one premise is negative, the conclusion 
must be negative also. 

(b) That where one premise is particular, the conclusion 
must be particular also ; and — 

(c) That no term must be distributed in the conclusion 
which has not been distributed in one of the premises. 

6. From two particular premises no conclusion can be 
drawn^ since, in this case, there can be no assurance that the 
major and minor terms have been compared with each other 
at all. 

'^o syllogism can be invalid which does not violate one 
or more of these rules ; and it is, therefore, a matter of prime 
importance that the student learn to apply them correctly 
and habitually to all his processes of reasoning. 

Sec. in. — ^FoEMS of the Syllogism. 

Careful analysis of our mental process.es reveals two gen- 
eric forms of syllogism corresponding to the generic forms of 
the judgments upon which all syllogisms depend, viz., cate- 
gorical and conditional. The latter, in turn, may be subdi- 
vided into hypothetical, disjunctive, and dilemmatic ; all of 
which must now be explicated as illustrating important psy- 
chical processes. 

i" I. Categorical Syllogisms. — The general laws of the 
simple categorical syllogism have, perhaps, been sufficiently 
illustrated in the preceding discussions, which are based 
upon this, as the typical form involving the essential laws of 
the generic development ; and the class is simply formally 
reannounced here, for the sake of distinctness of classifica- 
tion. 

^ n. Conditional Syllogisms. — A conditional syllogism is 
one of which the major premise, and the major premise alone, 
is a conditional judgment. There are three kinds of such 
syllogisms, corresponding to like forms of conditional judg 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 139 

ments, which supply the major premise. They are termed, 
respectively, the hypothetical, the disjunctive, and the dilem- 
matic. We give examples of each : 

Hypothetical. Disjunctive. 

K A is B, C is D ; A is either B or C ; 

A is B : A is B : 

Therefore, C is D. Therefore, A is not C. 

Dilemmatic or Sypothetico-Disjunctive. 

If A is B, C is either D or E ; 

C is neither D nor E : 

Therefore, A is not B. 

A very slight comparison of these three forms of condi- 
tional syllogisms will show that they depend, not like cate- 
gorical syllogisms, upon the laws of identity and contradic- 
tion, but upon the corresponding canons of reason and conse- 
quent, and of excluded middle. The hypothetical syllogism 
depends upon the canons of reason and consequent, and simply 
postulates, from the sufficient reason, viz., that A is B, the 
necessary consequent that C is D. 

The disjunctive syllogism, in like manner, depends upon 
the canon of excluded middle, which determines that, of two 
contradictories, one must be true and one false ; ars, in the ex- 
ample given, if A is B, it cannot be C. 

The dilemmatic or hypothetico-disjunctive syllogism, pos- 
its, as its name indicates, the principles of both its conge- 
ners, and therefore applies both canons as the conditions of 
a valid conclusion ; as, in the example given, where they de- 
termine that, if C is neither D nor E, A cannot be B. 

The complete analytical development of these several 
forms of syllogisms belongs to the science of logic, but it 
seemed indispensable, to any tolerable comprehension of the 
processes and products of mental development, to grasp them 
in outline, at least, in this connection. 



140 THE INTELLECT: 

Sec. ly. — Yalxie of the Syllogism. 

There has been much earnest discussion in reference to 
the real value of the syllogism, and objections have been 
made to it that in its use there is no real advancement or 
progress in knowledge, since the major premise necessarily 
declares all^ and frequently more than all, that is declared 
in the conclusion, and that the whole proceeding is, conse- 
quently, puerile. 

The fact is admitted, of course, that nothing can be in- 
ferred in the conclusion that is not involved in the premises ; 
but the objection is nevertheless groundless, since it con- 
founds potential with actual knowledge. Any man who has 
mastered the axioms and definitions of geometry possesses a 
potential knowledge of the whole science, but it would be 
absurd to say that he possesses an actual knowledge of it ; 
so a man may have knowledge, severally and separately, of 
the possible major and minor premises of a hundred syllo- 
gisms, and yet never draw, in fact, a single one of the possi- 
ble resulting inferences, and so convert his potential into 
ac^wa? knowledge. This single fact relieves the syllogistic 
process at once of the charge of puerility, and vindicates 
the propriety of its use, without entering upon those higher 
lines of thought which belong elsewhere. A few correlated 
thoughts, however, seem to demand enunciation, as illustra- 
ting the general topic, i. e., the value of the syllogism. 

^ I. All Reasoning is syllogistic. — The truth is not, per- 
haps, as generally comprehended as it should be, that all 
valid reasoning is syllogistic; that is, it is reducible, in its 
ultimate analysis, to the form of a syllogism. This is ap- 
parent from the very definitions of reasoning, which, how- 
ever variously they may be stated, all agree in recognizing 
it as a process of mediate knowledge, i. e., a process by 
which we know one thing in and through another ; but this is 
precisely the essential element in syllogistic reasoning. 

Practically, men in reasoning do not use formal syllo- 
gisms, but enthymemes, i. e., syllogisms with one or the other 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 141 

of the premises suppressed, because of its familiarity to the 
minds of both speaker and hearer. But such enthymemes 
may readily be reduced to the form of regular syllogisms by 
restoring the suppressed premise. 

% II. The SyUogism guarantees Formal Truth only. — The 
conclusion of a valid syllogism must be formally true, although 
it may be, and often is, actually false ; for example, All men 
are Americans ; John is a man : therefore, John is an Ameri- 
can, is a valid syllogism as to its form, though its major 
premise is absurdly false. This, however, is no real objection 
to the syllogism as such, since it does not propose to fur- 
nish, or guarantee the truth of, its own premises, but only 
the absolute certitude of the conclusion, if the truth of its 
premises be admitted. 

CHAPTER III.— REASONIN-G IN GEiTERAL. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

Distinctness requires some notice of the more obvious 
divisions or classifications of reasoning. Here, however, we 
are met at the very outset by the difficulty that various 
classifications have actually been made from variant stand- 
points ; all of which have become familiar, by name at least, 
to the popular mind, and must, therefore, be enunciated and 
correlated here. Keasonings may be classified according to 
their subject-matter, their forms, and their filial causes, as 
follows : 

Sectiox I.— Classification of Reasoning with eespect 
TO its Subject-Mattee. 

Reasoning with respect to its subject-matter may be dis- 
criminated into two general divisions; viz., demonstrative 
or necessary, and moral or probable. 

^ I. Demonstrative or Necessary Reasoning. — This is 
sometimes called mathematical reasoning, simply because it 
finds its widest and most fruitful field of application in math- 
ematics. We note : 



142 THE INTELLECT: 

1. Its nature. — Demonstration, in its technical sense, may 
be regarded as a series of consecutive syllogisms, founded 
upon practically absolute premises ; hence the comparatively 
narrow range of its use, limiting it almost entirely to the 
sphere of pure mathematics. There it meets all the necessary 
conditions of its evolution, viz. : 

{a) Intuitive truths, or axioms, whose validity and truth 
are undeniable, which serve it for premises ; and — 

{b) Necessary relations between ideally perfect lines, an- 
gles, circles, etc., etc., which serve it for factors. 

2. Its certitude. — -This is, obviously, humanly speaking, 
absolute ; we cannot disbelieve its conclusions if we would. 
Consciousness vouches for the premises, and the laws of the 
syllogism for the conclusion. In fact, each step of the pro- 
cess, however extended, is self-evident, and doubt is, both 
theoretically and practically, impossible. It affords, of course, 
no degrees of certitude ; its conclusions must needs be abso- 
lute. 

3. Its range of application. — This is necessarily limited, 
because it demands self-evident truths for its premises, and 
necessary relations for its conditions ; and these, in the sphere 
of human experience, belong exclusively to the spheres of in- 
tuition and conception, and not at all to that of sensation or 
the material world. Experience, therefore, in its ordinary 
metaphysical sense, does not and cannot furnish any data 
whatsoever for demonstrative reasoning. The lines, angles, 
and solids, to which the geometer applies his theorems, are not 
those inscribed upon the book or black-board, but those more 
perfect archetypes which exist in his conceptions of the 
ideal. 

^ II. Moral or Probable Reasoning. — Complementary to 
demonstrative reasoning, whose sphere is the region of neces- 
sary relations, is moral or probable reasoning, whose sphere 
is the wider realm of the material and the actual. It is, of 
course, not intended here either to affirm or deny any thing 
in reference to the actuality or non-actuality of the necessary 
intuitions or concepts of demonstrative reasoning, nor yet 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 143 

the existence or non-existence of necessary relations between 
material existences or entities. Our classification is depend- 
ent solely upon our subjective conceptions of the several enti- 
ties and relations. Demonstrative reasoning is applied solely 
to necessary existences and relations ; probable or moral, to 
contingent. 

1. Nature of moral reasoning. — Moral reasoning deals 
exclusively with contingent facts and relations ; i. e., with 
facts and relations which, however real, might have been, 
and may, hereafter, conceivably be, otherwise than we now 
actually perceive them to be. This form of reasoning de- 
pends for its materials upon experience ; and its data are, 
therefore, contingent, like the experience upon which they 
rest ; and the processes of the syllogism, as we have seen, 
guarantee oiAj formal conclusions, and not actual truths. 

2. Certitude of moral reasoning. — This, obviously, is rela- 
tive, and dependent upon the certitude of the elements that 
enter into it. It consequently admits of all possible degrees, 
from the slightest preponderance of doubts to the most abso- 
lute certitude. I no more doubt, for instance, that man is 
mortal, than I do that all the angles of a plane triangle are 
together equal to two right angles ; yet, to deny the last were 
absurd, to deny the first were simply to falsify known facts. 
In other -v^ords, I conceive mortality to be a contingent^ and 
not a necessary^ attribute of man ; but the equality of the 
angles of a triangle to two right angles I conceive to be a 
necessary attribute of the concept triangle when discretely 
explicated to the mind. 

3. Range of application of m,oral reasoning. — This is 
obviously wider and more varied than that of demonstrative 
reasoning. It includes all subjects of probation outside of 
the comparatively narrow sphere of the demonstrable. It is 
equally at home in the material and spiritual worlds — ^in the 
circles of business, and the halls of politics ; in the student's 
cell, and in the sacred desk. 



144: THE INTELLECT: 

Sec. II. — Classification?' of Reasoning accoeding to its 

Forms. 

Reasoning, wlien classified according to its forms or 
modes of statement, may be discriminated as a priori and a 
posteriori. 

^ I. Reasoning a Priori. — 1. Its nature. — This form of 
reasoning depends for its vitality upon the category of causa- 
tion ; and posits or concludes the existence of an effect from 
the proved or conceded preexistence of an adequate cause. 
It is logically based upon the canon of reason and conse- 
quent ; or, as it is sometimes called, the law of the sufiicient 
reason. The process, and the principle of it, are alike famil- 
iar, and need no special discussion. 

2. Its certitude. — The certitude reached by a priori rea- 
soning never attains, under ordinary circumstances, that per- 
fect satisfaction which the soul craves. It produces that 
peculiar mental influence expressed by the term plausible. 
Yet, perhaps, under conceivable conditions, it might attain to 
absolute certitude. So far as any cause tends to produce a 
certain effect, we may conclude the existence of the effect, 
provided no opposing or hindering cause has intervened to 
neutralize its influence. Thus I argue that a certain man 
must die because he has swallowed a large dose of arsenic. 
The conclusion is plausible^ but other causes may have inter- 
vened to neutralize the poison or remove it from the stomach, 
and thus the argument may fail. The proviso, " If no suffi- 
cient contrary cause intervene," is ordinarily indeterminate, 
and shadows the certitude that would otherwise result from a 
priori reasoning. 

3. Its range of application. — This is, in general, indefi- 
nite, and is practically indeterminate. Wherever a cause 
can be proved to exist, and operate in the material or spiritual 
worlds, we may fairly predicate the conclusion that some 
effect^ determinate or indeterminate, must follow ; but, if the 
problem be complex, the certitude reached may be of so 
doubtful a character as to be practically valueless. Its prin- 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 145 

cipal generic use is to prepare the way for other more posi- 
tive proofs, by showing the antecedent probability of the 
position assumed to be true. 

^ II. Reasoning a Posteriori. — This includes all other 
valid forms of reasoning whatsoever, such as reasoning from 
sign, from example, from testimony, etc., etc., which it is un- 
necessary to discuss here. Any legitimate form of reasoning, 
other than a priori, falls legitimately under this class. The 
degrees of certitude reached are, therefore, as varied as the 
range of application of the process, and this is almost unlim- 
ited. 

Sec. III. — Classificatiois" of Reasoning with Reference 
TO ITS Final Cause. 

Reasonings, as discriminated from each other, with refer- 
ence to their final causes or purposes, in each special instance, 
are divided into deductive and inductive. 

^ I. Deductive Reasoning. — The fact has been already 
noted that all reasoning, as such, is essentially deductive in 
its last analysis. The syllogism, as it is ordinarily stated in 
the quantity of extension, is the typical form of this mode. 

1. Its nature. — This may be summed up in the general 
statement, that deduction is, essentially, the analysis of an 
extensive whole into its constituent parts, and the positing 
of the essential attributes or properties of the whole of its 
constituent parts. The process, therefore, hinges upon the 
necessary relations of a whole to its parts ; of a genus to the 
species contained under it ; and of a species to the individ- 
uals constituting it. That which is true of the genus must 
needs be true of its constituent species ; and that which is 
true of the species must needs be true of the individuals 
composing it. 

2. Its certitude. — This has already been discussed in the 
examination of the various special forms of deductive reason- 
ing that have already passed under review. 

3. Its range of use. — This is coextensive with the quaur 
tity of extension, logically considered, and is, therefore, al- 

7 



146 THE INTELLECT: 

most unlimited in the domain of human thought. It is some- 
times said, however, that it is limited to the exposition of 
truth, and that it is useless as a means of discovering truth ; 
but it has already been shown that this objection is based 
upon a misconception of the relations of actual and potential 
knowledge. A thing may be potentially known, and yet 
actually unknown, and we may come into the conscious pos- 
session of this actually unknown factor, only by a course of 
deductive reasoning ; and the gain is as real in thus transfer- 
ring the potentially known to the sphere of actual knowledge 
as the economic gain of discovering and opening a new mine 
of gold to the owner of real estate. 

^ II. Inductive Reasoning. — ^If the foregoing estimate of 
the nature and relations of what is ordinarily known as de- 
ductive reasoning be accepted, the necessity is apparent of 
some other mental process by which the mind may attain to 
strictly new truths, and not merely to truths already poten- 
tially known. This necessity becomes yet more obvious 
when the question is raised, as it must be, " Whence do we 
obtain the major premises upon which all proper deductive 
reasoning rests ? " It is obvious : 

First. That only a moiety of them, at most, are the prod- 
ucts of intuition, either immediately or mediately ; and — 

Second. That they cannot themselves have been ob- 
tained by other primary deductions. 

It is sometimes said, indeed, that " they are obtained from 
experience ; " but there is room for the suspicion that those 
who assign to them this origin do not always realize in 
thought the exact significance of the words they use, or de- 
fine the nature and conditions of the experience they postu- 
late, and so determine at once its possibility and validity. 
The real solution of. the problem is found in the process of 
true logical induction, through which we obtain that moiety 
of the major premises of deductive syllogisms which are not 
intuitive concepts. It only remains, then, to consider the 
nature, certitude, and range of use of the inductive process. 

1. Nature of the inductive process. — In one sense, no pro- 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. IJ,'; 

cess of mind is more familiar to us than this, since it has been 
an essential constituent element of our whole personal mental 
development, from the first faint dawn of consciousness until 
the present moment ; yet, notwithstanding this fact, and not- 
withstanding its enormous development in the grand evolu- 
tions of modern science, logicians yet battle over its nature 
and vital principles. It is far easier to evolve the legitimate 
empirical laws which regulate its practical application, than 
it is. to evolve its real nature. 

The process, popularly stated, is as follows : As a natu- 
ralist, I meet a strange and hitherto undescribed animal ; I 
note its marks and peculiarities ; I meet a second, a third, and 
a fourth, similar to it in all respects. I class them together, 
assign them a common name, and posit, concerning all similar 
animals yet to be discovered, that, however much they may 
differ in minor points, they will all agree in certain essential 
marks or attributes constituting them a genus or species, as 
the case may be. It is obvious that, underlying this whole 
process, there is one essential postulate which is vital to it, 
namely, the assumption of the uniformity of Nature^ alike 
-in her laws and her processes. 

2. The vital principle of inductive reasoning; viz., the 
assumption of the uniformity of Nature. — Without this funda- 
mental postulate in some form, all induction, whether in its 
scientific sense or in its popular form of reasoning from ex- 
perience, would be not only fallacious but absurd. What, 
then, is the content and what the origin of this assumption ? 

If it be carefully analyzed, certain elements emerge at 
once into view, and the somewhat vague and indefinite 
phrase " uniformity of Nature " becomes instinct with life 
and pregnant with meaning. It predicates or postulates : 

{a) The universality of the law or category of causation / 
i. e., it predicates the assertion that Nature is the expression, 
not of a series of accidents and chances, but of a series of evo- 
lutions according to hoth determinate and determinable laws, 
which mutually involve each other, and also involve a second 
postulate, viz. ; 



148 THE INTELLECT: 

(b) The unity of this law of causatio7i. It does not suf- 
fice, as an adequate basis for legitimate induction, to assume 
merely that causation as such is universal ; the assumption 
must also include the secondary conception of determinate 
causation, according to some consistent law or principle. 
Should we posit a multiplicity of creators differing from each 
other in nature, characters, and purposes, it is obvious that 
confusion, and not order, must reign in the universe, and pre- 
vent all determinate and determinable order. It postulates : 

(c) The intelligence of this causation. That alone is in- 
telligible which springs from intelligence. Induction neces- 
sarily predicates a determinable determinate order in the uni- 
verse ; i. e., an order intelligible under the laws and forms of 
the human intellect. It thus postulates a community or 
unity of intelligence between man and the universe ; i. e., 
between man and the efficient cause of the universe. 

It is not obvious how any one of these allied assumptions 
can be discounted or set aside, and leave any intelligible 
basis for induction. If causation be not universal in its 
range, the inductions of ISTewton, Kepler, and Laplace, were 
absurd. If the principle of causality were not singidar, but 
multiple and diverse, the result would be the same ; thought 
could never know when it was passing the line of another 
and hostile sphere of causation, acting under diverse laws. 
Finally, if causation is not intelligent, and that too with an 
intelligence in harmony with the human, induction would 
still be impossible and irrational, since two intelligences, 
whose mental processes depend upon different laws, and re- 
spond to diverse principles, could have no intelligible rela- 
tions to each other. 

The necessities of the inductive process thus lead us to 
the concept of an intelligent Creator of man and the universe, 
in* whom alone we can attain to the conception of a singular 
intelligent universal cause, adequate at once to the necessi- 
ties of human thought and of material existence. 

If the legitimacy of this reference of the vital principle 
of induction (viz., the assumption of the uniformity of the 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 14,9 

processes and laws of Nature) to the category of causation 
be admitted, the origin of the postulate at once becomes evi- 
dent. It is nothing more than a legitimate deduction from 
our necessary intuitive concepts. The alternative theory, 
which makes it and the category of causation also deduc- 
tions from experience, fails in two essential conditions, viz. : 

First. It does not and cannot account for the element of 
necessity implied, and in fact posited, in both concepts. 
Take that away from the law of causation, and it is utterly 
without meaning ; take it from the assumed law of the uni- 
formity of Nature, and any induction based upon that is just 
as devoid of meaning or value. 

Second, It makes experience the condition, and in fact 
the cause, of its own existence. Take away from man the 
allied intuitive concepts of causation and the uniformity of 
Nature, and it is impossible for us to conceive how experience 
could begin at all ; and, if a beginning were possible, there 
would remain no conceivable law under which it could be 
evolved. Invariableness of succession and resemblance, which 
certain psychologists affirm to be all we know of causation, 
cannot aid us here ; for it is obtrusively evident that the only 
successions in Nature which are to man absolutely invariable 
are precisely those with which he never connects or associates 
the ideas of cause and effect. Such are the successions of 
day and nighty of suTumer and winter^ of life and death. It 
is almost idle to say that, notwithstanding the invariableness 
of these successions, no man, woman, or child, ever^ in any of 
the cases named, mistook the antecedent for a cause and the 
consequent for an effect ; but, on the contrary, all men have, 
just as invariably, postulated an efficient cause for each phe- 
nomenon outside of this invariable succession. Two infer- 
ences are thus necessitated, viz. : 

{a) That the concept of causation is universal ; and — 

ip) That it does, in fact, include something more than 
the perception of invariableness of succession. 

3. Hange of use of induction. — Deductive reasoning, as 
has been already noted, is used chiefly for the evolution of 



150 THE INTELLECT: 

the content of general laws or propositions. The special 
function of induction is to supply or originate these general 
truths. The one is used to evolve potential knowledge and 
make it actual^ by reducing it to possession ; the other is 
used to discover new truths, to bring the unknown into the 
sphere of the potentially or actually known. The one is the 
instrument of investigation ; the other, of probation : the one 
belongs to the scientist, who seeks to fathom the mysteries of 
Nature ; the other belongs to the teacher, who seeks to unfold 
those mysteries to the minds of the multitude. 

It would be interesting and profitable, were it pertinent, 
to investigate the scientific laws and processes of induction, 
as well as to evolve the inductive syllogism and determine 
its relations to the deductive, but such discussions belong 
rather to the domain of logic than of psychology ; and are 
inconsistent with the limits of a treatise like the present. 



CHAPTEE ly.— EEASOmi^G: ITS EESULTANT PEODUOT, 

EAITH. 

Section" I. — Analysis of its Kelations. 

^ I. Filial Cause of all Intellectual Activity. — In the 
processes of reasoning, the intellect of man attains to its ulti- 
mate product, namely, belief, or faith, which must, therefore, 
be accepted as the proximate final cause of all intellection 
whatsoever. The steps or processes (to recapitulate them) 
have been three, viz. • 

1. Cognition or perception of the actual, both in the 
material and spiritual worlds. This, as we have noted, in- 
volves the perfect synthesis of sensation and intuition in the 
resulting percept. 

2. Conception of the ideal (both imaginative and logical) 
in the synthesis of the processes of the representative facul- 
ties, viz., the memory, the imagination, and the synthetic 
judgment. The resultant products are concepts, both im- 
aginative and logical. 

3. Reasoning, inductive and deductive, based upon the 



( 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT^BELIEF. 151 

faculty of judgment, giving, primarily, knowledge of the true ; 
secondarily, knowledge of the beautiful and the good ; and 
resulting in belief, or faith, as the ultimate product and 
proximate final cause of all intellection. This, in turn, pre- 
pares the way for the normal evolutions of the sensitive and 
moral or voluntary functions of the soul. In other words, 
we cognize the actual, we conceive the ideal, and we believe 
or attain to faith in the true, the beautiful, and the good, that 
we may bring them within tlie sphere of our sensitive 
natures, and call our voluntary powers into action, in ac- 
cordance with their own normal laws. Faith thus stands as 
a sentinel at the door of the inner, and in a certain sense 
higher, functions of the soul, to guard the citadel from the in- 
trusion of open or secret foes. Faith, therefore, is the high- 
est, as it is the ultimate, product of human thought, the end 
to which all intellection tends, and in which it terminates. 

1" II. Faith is the Rational, as it is the only Possible, 
Condition of Human Activity. — To men accustomed to sound 
the praises of reason and to underrate faith as childish, it 
may seem a lame and impotent conclusion, that faith is not 
only the rational, but the only possible, condition of human 
activity ; but so it is, as a few additional considerations, in 
the light of our previous discussions, will clearly prove. We 
remark : 

1. Perception or cognition gives and can only give knowl- 
edge of the actual, of that which now exists in the sphere of 
consciousness, and is known in the synthesis of sensation and 
intuition. That which we perceive we necessarily perceive 
oiow and here ; and perception does not, and cannot, reveal to 
us, in any sense whatever, that which is absent in time or 
space. It tells us, and can tell us, directly, nothing of the 
future ; of its hopes or fears, its promises or its possibilities — 
hence it is not, and cannot be, the legitimate incitant to ac- 
tion. Men never act merely from the knowledge of what 
now is ; their acts must needs have their outlook and their ex- 
citants, as well as their final cause, in the future. But percep- 
tion knows nothing of final causes, purposes, or ends, and so 



152 THE INTELLECT: 

can offer, directly^ no stimulus to action. We say, can offer 
directly^ i. e., immediately / for, remotely^ perception of the 
actual, as the basis and condition precedent of both concep- 
tion and belief, may be said to furnish a basis for action. 
Yet it may safely be postulated as an axiom, that he who 
will only act from knowledge will never act at all. 

2. Conception gives only the ideal, the possible. It may, 
therefore, by presenting an ideal brighter and more beautiful 
than any reality which perception has ever revealed, stimu- 
late man to grasp after it ; but, if our activity have no other 
and no higher stimulus to effort than this, our efforts must 
needs be transitory and spasmodic. Humanity needs, in 
order to persistent and intelligent effort, a stimulus to action 
as constant and persistent as the effort required ; and this 
does not, and cannot, come from a bare ideal^ however beauti- 
ful or perfect. In fact, the very perfection of an ideal may 
paralyze the energies that it should stimulate, by taking 
away all rational hope of success. Men struggle after the 
attainable^ never after that which obviously lies secure be- 
hind insurmountable barriers. The unattainable may be an 
object of despairing and anguished desire, but it cannot be 
of effort or of hope. Something more and something higher 
than a lofty ideal in the near or the distant future is neces- 
sary to awaken and sustain the energies of the human soul 
in its struggles after the ideal, which has for the time be- 
come its supreme good. 

3. Rational faith alone remains to be considered as a pos- 
sible basis for intelligent action, adequate to the necessities 
of man in this life. We emphasize the words rational faith^ 
i. e., the resultant product of all our intellectual processes in 
their last and highest evolution. Two facts may be postu- 
lated as axiomatic, namely : 

(a) That reasoning, in the proper sense of the term, is 
the highest as it is the last evolution of human thought; 
and that — 

(6) Belief, or faith — for here the terms used are strictly in- 
terchangeable — is the highest as it is the ultimate product of 



ITS THIRD MO VEMEXT— BELIEF. 153 

the reason in man. The term faith, or belief, is here used as 
the true generic representative of the product of reason in its 
ultimate evolution, and includes every condition, from the 
slightest preponderance of probabilities to the absolute cer- 
tainty of mathematical demonstration. Sometimes the term 
belief is reserved for the lower, and faith for the higher, de- 
grees of certitude, especially in the sphere of moral or prob- 
able reasoning ; and the term knowledge is appropriated to 
express the certainty of demonstration. But the latter dis- 
tinction is objectionable on two grounds, viz. : 

First, It implicitly assumes that all the conclusions of 
demonstrative are more certain than any in moral or proba- 
ble reasoning — an assumption wholly untenable and false ; 
and — 

Second. That every step in mathematical reasoning is 
self-evident, which is untrue in the higher algebra and calcu- 
lus. Here the assumed necessary superiority of demonstra- 
tion fails ; the term knowledge again becomes inapplicable, 
and the final product is belief, or faith. 

Sec. II. — Analysis of its Foems. 

Faith, or belief, has already been declared to be generic^ 
the resultant product of various processes of reasoning opera- 
ting upon materials diverse alike in nature and value. It 
becomes necessary, therefore, to analyze this product, and 
determine at once its essential character and its relations. 
This is the more necessary, inasmuch as our previous analysis 
has shown that it is, in some of its forms, not only the ulti- 
mate product of thought, but that it enters into the initial 
processes of all intellection in perception. Our intuitions are 
frequently, and with propriety, caWed primitive beliefs ; and 
we accept them with an invincible faith, on the ground of 
their self-evidence. Hence, sometimes, we are said "^o 
know'''* them to be true, thus distinguishing or marking a 
higher apparent degree of faith, or certitude, by the term 
knowledge. It is not apparent, however, how any better 
distinction can be taken between the terms faith and knowl- 



154 THE INTELLECT: 

edge than the one taken in this treatise, namely, the appli- 
cation of the term knowledge to perception and its resulting 
percepts; and the terms belief and faith to reasoning and 
its resulting conviction. This theory, it will be seen at once, 
postulates for faith, in its highest forms, a degree of certitude 
as complete and as satisfactory as any act of perception 
whatsoever can give. 

Faith as a generic term covers a variety of mental states 
or products differing from each other in the processes by 
which they are severally evolved ; and these processes, as to 
their form at least, are largely determined by the objects to 
which they are directed. The various modes of reasoning 
have, perhaps, been sufficiently investigated, and it only re- 
mains to analyze and classify our faiths with respect to their 
several objects. It is obvious that these must, in gener- 
al, coincide with the normal ultimate elements of human 
thought ; viz., self and not-self; or, following out our previous 
evolution, man, Nature, and God, as the expression of not- 
self. We here apparently isolate self illogically from man, 
but this is necessary from this stand-point, as will be seen in 
the sequel, since self as an object of faith differs generically 
from man, who in this relation belongs to the category of 
not' self We proceed, therefore, to analyze faith in its rela- 
tions : 1. To self, or the consciousness ; 2. To IN'ature as the 
real finite not-self known in perception; 3. To man as the 
congener of self; and 4. To God. 

^ I. Faith in Self, or the Consciousness. — The first striking 
result of this special analysis is the explicit evolution of the 
fact that, although faith has thus far been defined to be the 
ultimate product of the highest form of intellection, namely, 
reasoning, it must also be recognized as a primitive fact of 
consciousness, both logically and chronologically antedating 
and conditioning all mental processes whatsoever. In other 
words, faith in consciousness, its processes, and its products, 
is an underlying condition precedent of all intellection what- 
soever. ISTo course of reasoning can supply its own premises ; 
no process furnish its own data ; no intellectual faculty sup- 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 155 

ply its own Archimedean ^' pou sto^^'' upon which to plant its 
machinery. That which is true of this or that special faculty 
of mind, is true of consciousness itself. Memory, for exam- 
ple, can neither furnish its own materials nor vindicate the 
correctness of its own processes. It trusts perception (i. e., 
the consciousness) for the one, it postulates the truth and 
validity of the other; i. e., in other words, it appeals to the 
primitive faith of consciousness (or the soul) in itself, its 
processes, and its products ; and this appeal, it will be ob- 
served, is final, ultimate,, decisive. If it be rejected as un- 
satisfactory, intellection is at an end ; no other appeal is 
possible. We cannot legitimately, if we would, attain to that 
indefinable " no-man's-land " of universal doubt ; for doubt can 
only exist on condition that the consciousness which doubts 
be accredited as a competent witness to the existence of the 
doubt postulated. But to accredit the consciousness is to 
discredit the doubt ; while to accredit the doubt is to dis- 
credit the consciousness which doubts. An impossible con- 
dition, therefore, emerges at every attempt to discredit con- 
sciousness. The fact must, therefore, be postulated as axio- 
matic, necessary, and universal, that faith in eonscious7iess is 
the essential condition precedent of all intellection whatsoever. 
Faith in consciousness may be normally discriminated 
into certain elementary forms, which may profitably be no- 
ticed discretely, viz. : 

1. Faith in itself; i. e., in its own conscious existence. 
This is, strictly, the primitive fact postulated in every phe- 
nomenon and every act of consciousness. It is alike unde- 
niable and indemonstrable. To doubt it were to demonstrate 
it ; but to doubt it is impossible, hence to demonstrate it is 
also impossible. 

2. Faith in its processes. It is just as impossible to 
verify the processes of consciousness, in principle or in fact, 
as it is to verify the existence of consciousness to itself. It 
is true that, to a limited extent, we may verify the testimo- 
ny of one sense by another, and one process by another ; 
but this is true only to a limited extent. When, however, 



156 THE INTELLECT: 

the question is raised as to the credibility of sensation, or as 
to the verity or credibility of mental processes in general, 
the problem is insoluble, and doubt is impossible, because 
self-destructive. Here one faculty or process, antecedently, 
can claim no superiority over another. It is absurd to ac- 
credit sensation at the expense of intuition, or vice versa / or 
to accredit memory and discredit reason or the judgment, 
and so of the rest. This is not, of course, intended to pre- 
clude the proper verification or correction of one mental 
process by another, when such verification or correction is 
practicable, but to discredit the absurd attempts sometimes 
made to discriminate between the primitive coordinate facul- 
ties of the soul. 

3. Faith in its necessary products. Under the head of 
necessary products of consciousness, must be included : 

(a) A priori concepts and affirmations^ such as space, 
time, causation, the axioms of mathematics, etc., etc. For 
our faith in these, or our affirmation of these, no other reason 
can be given than that we are so constituted that we do and 
must believe them implicitly ; in other words, our faith in 
them is fundamental and absolute, and he who attempts to 
discredit them actually accredits them, either explicitly or 
implicitly, in every statement he makes, or act he performs. 

(5) III its secondary concepts and beliefs. These obvi- 
ously follow the law of their primitives, and stand or fall 
with them. Here, however, we must discriminate accurately 
between faith in this or that particular act or exercise of any 
special faculty, and faith in the average results and opera- 
tions of the faculty itself. I may, for sufficient cause, distrust 
a special act of memory or judgment, without discrediting 
either faculty. So, also, I may distrust this or that act 
of perception, without distrusting the faculty itself. For 
example, in pure, syllogistic reasoning, I may doubt the 
conclusion, either because I doubt one or both of the 
premises, or I may doubt the conclusion because it disagrees 
with or contradicts other well-established conclusions ; and, 
doubting the conclusion, I may come to doubt the premises. 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 157 

but I cannot, if I would, doubt the regular syllogistic process 
by which I have evolved the conclusion from the assumed 
premises. "Whatever else may be false, that, at least, is true. 

% II. Faith in Nature and its Laws. — ^Passing from the 
sphere of consciousness, we come, at once and necessarily, 
into that of Nature, which environs, contains, and conditions, 
the sphere of consciousness. Here we attain, at a period so 
early that we cannot fix the time, to a vague but real con- 
ception of a certain repetition, regularity, order, uniformity, 
or causation in Nature, corresponding to, and complementary 
of, the order of evolution of our personal conscious existence. 
The nature and character of this recognized order or uni- 
formity in Nature has, perhaps, been sufficiently considered, 
under the heads of the category of causation and of induc- 
tion, and the fact need only be formally restated — that the 
essential element underlying our conception of the uniformity 
of Nature is nothing more than the generic canon of causa- 
tion. No man hesitates to affirm that, all efficient causes 
remaining the same, to-day will be as yesterday, and to-mor- 
row as to-day ; but, at the same time, he will have just as 
little hesitation in accepting the hypothesis that the future 
will be unlike the past, if the intervention of new and diverse 
efficient causes be either postulated or proved. That which 
the mind really affirms is not the uniformity of Nature^ 
pure and simple, but the uniformity of its coordination under 
the general law or canon of causation. We may thus postu- 
late, at once, unity and variety in Nature, as the legitimate 
resultants of this order ; for we recognize as real the efficiency 
of personal human agents, acting upon Nature through the 
medium of natural forces, cooperating with or contravening 
the plans and purposes of the Divine Architect who called 
the universe into being. 

Faith in Nature and the uniformity of her laws is essen- 
tial to the evolution of the arts, of the sciences, of civil 
society, and, in a word, to the normal development of hu- 
manity. It is, in fact, a condition precedent of all legitimate 
improvement, whether intellectual, social, or moral. It is an 



158 THE INTELLECT: 

evidence, therefore, of the Divine Wisdom, which has pre- 
arranged all things for man's good, that he is not left to 
learn this fundamental condition of all art, all science, all 
government, and, in a word, of all development, by the slow 
and doubtful processes of experience, which can, indeed, re- 
veal what is and what has been, but which can in nowise tell 
us either what must be, or, apart from the assumed uniformity 
of Nature, what may be in the future. Experience can be a 
guide to the future only on the assumption of the uniformity 
of !N^ature, and that assumption it can neither originate nor 
verify. 

1" III.* Faith in Man. — ^Passing onward and upward in our 
analysis, under the generic concept of not-self, yet far more 
closely allied to self than aught else with which we come in 
contact, we find our fellow-man our congener and kinsman 
in the relations of an identical nature and consciousness. 
Here the problem of faith, as viewed in relation to its object, 
involves new and complex elements. In reference to our 
own personal consciousness, the elements upon which faith 
fastened were comparatively simple and direct ; their modes 
of action were familiar, and their products determinable. In 
reference to Nature, considered apart from man, the problem 
is limited by the processes and relations of material causation, 
and our faith fastens upon that law as the regulating prin- 
ciple of the grand cosmical movements that are going on 
around us ; so that, however mysterious the combinations 
and complications may seem to be, we yet feel assured that, 
if we can but lay our hands on the hidden clew, we shall un- 
ravel them all, and find only glorious order and beauty, 
where the unbelieving soul sees only complexity and confu- 
sion. But when we turn to man, we come in contact with 
new elements ; not only with an intelligence like to our own, 
but also with the powers of a free volition, or free moral 
agency, uncontrolled by the law of causation. Faith in 
man, therefore, as involving diverse elements, difiers essen- 
tially from faith in Nature ; but it approximates, by so much, 
to the faith we have in ourselves. 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 159 

The essential elements distinguishing man as an object 
of faith, are : 1. His physical nature ; 2. His intelligence ; 3. 
His voluntary powers. 

1. Sis physical nature. — In this, man is very closely 
allied to the proximate genera of animals ; and inductions 
or analogies based upon their phenomenal life may, with 
considerable certainty, be applied to the animal life of man. 
Yet the links in the chain of causation, or rather the com- 
plexity of elements in organic life, is so great that the prob- 
lems to be solved are far more difficult than they are in the 
inorganic world, and the results are, therefore, correspond- 
ingly doubtful. 

2. Sis intellectual nature. — In this, he is so absolutely 
identified with us, by the possession of a consciousness so 
perfectly congenerical with our own, that we reason con- 
cerning it with a faith based upon our consciousness of the 
intellectual life within us, which tends naturally, if not in- 
evitably, to dogmatism. We affirm of a neighbor, for in- 
stance, that "he does not and cannot believe this or that, 
or that he does not and cannot doubt this or that ; " and we 
do this with a perfect sincerity and an undoubting faith that 
can only be generated by the consciousness that it would be 
impossible for us to so believe or doubt under the actual 
conditions of the problem. We thus unhesitatingly apply 
to our fellow-man the laws of our own free personality ; or, 
in familiar language, we judge our neighbors by ourselves. 
It results necessarily from this principle that good men are 
naturally trustful and bad men are naturally suspicious. 

3. Sis moral nature. — This, in the true sense, is the rep- 
resentative of the individuality or personality of the man ; 
it is, therefore, a phenomenon sui generis, having absolutely 
no analogon in the sphere of experience. We can, in this 
respect, therefore, only judge our fellow-men in the light of 
personal consciousness and of observation of man. All argu- 
ments or analogies drawn from Nature or the animal world 
to the moral nature of man are necessarily deceptive, since 
they ignore conscience and the will, the absolutely essential 



160 THE INTELLECT: 

elements in the problem. But here, fortunately, we possess 
a golden key to this closed door, in the depths of conscious- 
ness and the phenomena of our own free personalities, so that 
we can, in fact, judge of the actions of men in masses or 
communities with even more certainty than we can judge of 
some of the more complex elements of Nature. 

The ground or basis of our faith in man as man must, 
therefore, be sought in the depths of our personal conscious- 
ness ; and it is not, as we are often told, the result of experi- 
ence, but is coordinate with it, and in a certain sense ante- 
dates it. The truth is, faith in man is instinctive, or iyitui- 
tive, and we learn by experience, not trust, but distrust. 
" Credulous as a child" has passed into a proverb, and justly 
too, for children instinctively trust men, and only learn to 
distrust them by the bitter lessons of a sad experience. 
Fearful, therefore, is the work of that parent who, by care- 
lessness, or, worse, by so-called innocent deception, first teaches 
the child the bitter lesson of distrust ; for, to the last, exces- 
sive credulity is wiser, better, happier, than excessive doubt 
or distrust. Better far is it for man to trust and be deceived 
a thousand times, than never to trust, and thus to dwell for 
ever alone, in a solitude worse than that of Sahara, and in an 
atmosphere more deadly than the miasms of the Campagna ! 

^ lY. Faith in God. — In the affirmation of God and His 
infinite perfections, faith culminates, and finds absolute re- 
pose. In Nature it meets only with the finite, the limited, 
the variable, under multiple forms ; while, by the very laws 
of its own being, it demands unity and invariability. In 
man, it finds a certain degree of unity, but it is the unity of 
limited, finite personalities, acting and reacting upon each 
other and upon Nature, which they limit, and by which they 
are limited ; and thus the seeming unity of the individual is 
lost in the endless multiplicity of the race; and man and Na- 
ture alike demand a reduction to a higher unity, which shall 
contain both, and account for both, in the overwhelming ful- 
ness of its own self-sufficiency. Faith in God is a psychologic 
necessity to man — a fact proved, not only by .actual analysis 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 161 

of the content of the individual consciousness, but also by- 
decisive historic evidence, which proves conclusively that the 
generic concept, under some one or other of its possible forms, 
has ever been an actual fruitful element in the evolution of 
the historic forms of human society. Generically considered, 
the concept of God has originated, under the canon of contra- 
diction, two schools, viz. : 1. That of atheism, which denies ; 
and 2. That of theism, which affirms the existence of God. 

I. Atheism. — This is not, as might be supposed, a sim- 
ple, indivisible school or theory. It presents itself under at 
least two specific forms, each of which has been an object of 
faith, viz. : 

{a) The theory of chance^ in which the devotee affirms 
at once the non-existence of God, and the universal dominion 
of chance. This theory logically excludes, not only destiny 
or fate, but law or order also. It is needless to say that it is 
the resultant and concomitant of a very low order and degree 
of mental development, and emerges only from the sphere of 
ignorance. At the present day it commands no respect, and 
has no advocates. 

(5) The theory of law, destiny, fate, the immutable 
order or relation of things, etc. Intelligent atheism is a 
positive as well as a negative faith. On its negative side, it 
denies either the actual existence of God, or, conceding the 
abstract possibility of His existence, denies the possibility 
of a revelation and authentication of that existence to man. 
On the latter hypothesis, if God is. He is to man as if He 
were not. 

On its positive side, it affirms the universality of the do- 
minion of law, using that term, not as the expression of the 
intelligent volitions of a personal lawgiver, but as the syno- 
nyme of the immutable relations of things, conceived as self- 
existent and eternal entities. It does not, however, postulate 
their eternal existence in this or that specific form, but in 
their ultimate generic or typical form. This hypothesis ob- 
viously ultimates in the affirmation, philosophically, of the 
endless recurrence of a series of cycles of evolution and dis- 



162 THE INTELLECT: 

integration, each cycle beginning and ending in a funda- 
mental chaos, in which ultimate being and its laws alone 
exist, and consciousness is not. This theory, as will be seen 
in the sequel, is identical in fact with pantheism in its last 
analysis. 

II. Theism. — This, as a generic concept or theory, opposed 
to atheism, may be resolved into three specific concepts or 
hypotheses, differing widely from each other in their natures, 
their relations, and their consequences. The specific ground 
of division parting the genus is personality. Theists, generi- 
cally so called, may be classified into those affirming, respect- 
ively : first, the impersonality, and, second, the personality 
of God ; or, in jDopular language, into pantheists and theists 
proper. 

1. Pantheism. — doctrine of an impersonal God. This 
differs in little else than the name from the rational form of 
atheism. It postulates, like that, the universality and immu- 
tability of law throughout the cosmos, or universe, including 
in those terms absolutely all existence, material and spiritual, 
intelligent and unintelligent, necessary and voluntary, known 
and unknown, human and divine. Like atheism, it postulates 
also the eternity and self-existence of the germinal or ulti- 
mate element of all being ; and this ultimate being, in its 
undeveloped, formless, unconscious self-existence, is God 
— hut a God unintelligent, unconscious, and impersonal. 
Atheism posits -the eternal relations, properties, and laws of 
the eternal substance or substances in the primal chaotic 
state, without attempting to determine the ultimate unity or 
multiplicity (though inclining to multiplicity) of substance 
or substances. Pantheism posits the ultimate unity of sub- 
stance, and its unconscious self-evolution into the perceived 
multiplicity of the universe under the necessary attributes, 
conditions, properties, or laws of its own unconscious being. 
Atheism, therefore, in its rational form, sustains the same re- 
lation to pantheism which polytheism sustains to true theism, 
i. e., to monotheism. 

Atheism admits the illusory intelligence and freedom of 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 163 

the human personality, but cannot, in any wise/ account for 
even that illusive existence. Pantheism affirms the self-con- 
sciousness, intelligence, and personality of its Deity ; but 
only in the consciousness, intelligence, and personality of 
each one of its multiple human personalities. This self-con- 
sciousness, intelligence, and personality, are, however, but 
illusions, which, like bubbles on the ocean, appear for a mo- 
ment, only to sink back and be reabsorbed into the bosom 
of unconscious^ unintelligent, and impersonal Deity. Athe- 
ism and pantheism alike, therefore, fail to account for, or 
rationally justify to the human soul, its own conscious exist- 
ence, states, and phenomena. !N'or is the fact that intelligent 
men hold to both of these forms of faith as the satisfactory 
and only satisfactory solution of the cosmic problems that, 
from age to age, emerge into human consciousness, presump- 
tive evidence in favor of either ; for both the atheist and the 
pantheist habitually state their theories in language appro- 
priate only to the theory of a monotheistic personal God, and 
which, of right, belongs exclusively to the last-named theory. 
They thus, consciously or unconsciously, throw around their 
several theories an illusive or deceptive meaning, which ren- 
ders to the mind a satisfaction which the theories themselves, 
fairly stated in language strictly appropriate to themselves, 
could not give ; just as the sensualistic school of philosophers 
(intentionally or unintentionally) cover the nakedness of their 
theory of causation, viz., " mere invariableness of succession 
and resemblance," by the use of language, forms of expres- 
sion, and applications, which in all fairness belong exclu- 
sively to their opponents. It unquestionably requires an 
effort for any intelligent reader of the works of the great 
pantheistic writers of the day to stop, in the midst of the full 
tide of flowing thought, and divest his mind of the illusive 
significance of their beautiful descriptions of God and the 
universe — illusions which spring from their habitual use of 
forms or modes of expression, of words, and of allusions, 
which originated in the faith of a personal, self-conscious 
God, and which cannot be used, even by an avowed pantheist, 



1(34 THE INTELLECT: 

without awaking ideas and concepts which the pantheist 
would formally disavow. This is obviously as unfair as it is 
unscientific; and the plea, sometimes offered in justification, 
that " there is no other language in which they can express 
their thoughts," is simply an admission that the theories of 
atheism and pantheism alike contradict the common con- 
sciousness of humanity. It is perfectly safe to say that 
neither atheism nor pantheism would need any other refuta- 
tion than the habitual use of exact and characteristic language 
on the part of their professed advocates. ISTeither faith could 
long endure such an ordeal. 

2. Personal theism. — This form also is generic, and pre- 
sents itself under two divisions or species, viz., polytheism 
and monotheism, or theism proper. 

(a) Polytheism. — This involves the assertion of a plu- 
rality of Gods, each of whom is conceived as a distinct and 
independent personality. They are sometimes conceived as 
entirely independent, and often as antagonistic, and at others 
as related by consanguinity or other forms of afiiliation. It 
suffices, for the sake of logical completeness, to note this 
form of faith ; discussion of it is needless, although it is held 
to-day by a majority of the human race. It has, however, 
no standing whatever among truly civilized and enlightened 
nations, and, in the nature of things, can have none. As 
obviously self-contradictory and absurd, it must be discounted 
at once, as a simple perversion of the natural elements of 
human thought, originating in moral rather than rational 
causes, and disappearing with the abnormal elements and 
conditions that called it into being. 

{b) Monotheism^ or theism proper^ predicates the exist- 
ence, the unity, the spirituality, the infinity, and the perfec- 
tion of God, and affirms Him to be self-existent and self- 
sufficient, the uncaused cause of all being, whether material, 
spiritual, or mixed, and the sufficient reason of the universe, 
with all its actualities and potentialities. 

This theory grounds itself immovably in the actual phe- 
nomena of the human soul as an intelligent, self-conscious 



ITS THIRD MOVEMENT— BELIEF. 165 

free agency or free cause ; and, in the midst of the atheism, 
pantheism, and polytheism of the ages, has carved out, in 
language, the reflection of these indelible, necessary processes 
of human thought and development, so that the atheist, the 
pantheist, and the polytheist, are alike compelled to robe their 
adverse theories in language borrowed from theism proper, 
and are thus constrained to pay unwilling homage to truth 
and the God of truth. 

In the conception of God, human thought culminates, and 
faith attains to its perfect rest, and its maximum of energy 
and power. In Him alone it attains to that intellectual and 
moral '■'' pou s^o"in the heavens which Archimedes vainly 
sought, whereby it is enabled to move the earth, and to solve 
potentially, if not actually, all its mysteries. In Him alone 
it finds at once the sufficient reason for the phenomena of 
matter and of mind, for the laws of physics and of thought, 
for our faith in the uniformity of Nature, and our faith in 
consciousness. 

It is sometimes said that the steps by which man strug- 
gles up to faith in God are, separately considered, weak and 
doubtful, and that the resultant faith must, logically, be cor- 
respondingly weak and doubtful ; but this is a simple mis- 
conception of the process. As well might it be said to a 
shipwrecked mariner, who has climbed, tremblingly and 
doubtfully, from the top of a surf-beaten wreck, by a slender 
ladder of swaying ropes, in which sometimes but a single 
half-rotten cord interposes between him and death, that his 
position is still insecure, when he stands firmly at last upon 
the level surface of the granite clifi". It is not true, psycho- 
logically, that a faith is no stronger, rationally, than the 
weakest link in the chain of thought that led to it. That 
link may have been but a preponderating doubt, while the 
faith may have, rationally, the strength of a perfect demon- 
stration. It is thus that the faith of the earnest thinker 
grasps the concept of God, and fastens upon it with an en- 
ergy, a power, an intensity of conviction, and a self-evidence, 
that reacts- upon the whole intellectual and moral life, and 



166 THE INTELLECT: 

lifts the man to a higher plane of thought, inspires him with 
nobler impulses, and incites him to a purer life. This sug- 
gests a final thought, with which our analysis of the intellect 
must conclude, namely : 

% Y. Relations of Faith, to Character. — No single phenom- 
enon of human development is more marked or more remark- 
able than the influence of a special faith upon the development 
of personal character. History is full of examples of men 
who have grasped some special faith or truth with such energy 
and intensity that it has absorbed and appropriated all the 
faculties and powers of their souls, and changed, not only all 
the purposes of their lives, but the destinies of nations as 
well. It may be an hypothesis in science or in government, a 
dream of the ideal in art, or it may be faith in God, that thus 
absorbs and appropriates all the energies, all the powers, all 
the hopes, all the sweetness of life, into itself; but, whatever 
it may be, the fact remains that faith is, at last, the vital force 
that moves and moulds the world. 

But, while the fact is so obtrusive, its philosophy is not so 
apparent. It is easy, indeed, to generalize concerning it, and 
to illustrate the power of the nearest object to seize upon the 
soul, just as the mote on the object-glass of the astronomer's 
telescope hides or obscures a distant world, but, after all, such 
analogies fail to satisfy us. In the light of preceding inves- 
tigations, the solution of the problem resolves itself into two 
complementary thoughts, viz. : 

1. That concentration is the essential element or condition 
precedent of the evolution of decisive power in the Jinite 
human soul. It is, consequently, a necessary law of the evo- 
lution of humanity, that it attains to its highest results, in 
any given sphere of research or action, only on condition of 
neglecting all minor elements, and of fastening upon some 
central vitalizing thought, concept, or faith. And — 

2. That, in the analytic evolution of the ultimate elements 
of thought, as well as in the final resultants of our intellec- 
tual processes, we attain, severally and personally, to faith in 
God, as the final specific and generic faith of humanity, and 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS. 167 

as the broadest, the highest, the intensest, and the most philo- 
sophic vitalizing element of human activity. 

The man whose life is vitalized and intensified by any less 
comprehensive faith than this ultimate faith in God, must 
necessarily be limited, de facto, to a partial, imperfect, and 
incomplete evolution of his o^vl potential life ; while the man 
whose life is vitalized by a living faith in God, not only attains 
to a higher plane of thought, but also to a more comprehen- 
sive and equable development of his own potential life y with 
the additional advantage that, returning from this higher plane 
and intenser vitality, he may and will react with accumulated 
momentum upon any subsidiary purpose, or object, or faith, 
which may, for the time, legitimately claim his attention. 
Faith in God is thus, psychologically, as well as theologically, 
the central element in the evolution of a pure, an intense, and 
an ideally perfect humanity. 



THE INTELLECT: SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS. 

Preliminary Analysis. 

Before passing from the sphere of the Intellect to that of 
the Sensibilities, it seems to be necessary for us to pause and 
investigate certain normal and abnormal states or affections 
of the soul, which cannot, as yet, be reduced to any scientific 
coordination with the mental faculties or the ordinary pro- 
cesses of intellection, but which, from their frequency and 
importance, demand some notice, even in an elementary trea- 
tise. These special states and affections may, with sufficient 
accuracy, be considered under the heads of Sleep and its con- 
comitants, and of Insanity. 



168 THE INTELLECT: 

DIYISIOJS^ FIRST-SLEEP. 

Preliminary Analysis. 
Evolution of the Forms of Sleep. 

^ I. Natural Sleep. — ISTo phenomenon of human life is 
more familiar or more gratefal to man than that of sleep. It 
comes to relieve his weariness, to ease his pain, to soothe his 
sorrows, and to bring new life and new energy to his whole 
complex being, physical and intellectual. It needs, therefore, 
but to be named to be recognized. 

*j[ II. Cataleptic Sleep. — Nearly allied to the phenomena 
of natural sleep are those that manifest themselves in the 
phenomena of trances, animal magnetism, modern spiritual- 
ism (so called), etc., etc., which may not improperly be classed 
together, and called cataleptic sleep, and which, from their 
marked peculiarities, demand separate analysis. 

CLASS L— NATUEAL SLEEP. 
Preliminary Analysis. 

^ I. Sleep both a Physical and a Psychical Phenomenon. — 
It is needless here to offer any formal definition of natural 
sleep ; it suffices to analyze its conditions, and to ascertain 
its relations. It is obviously both a physical and a psychical 
phenomenon, i. e., it involves, primarily, both the material 
and spiritual natures of man in its influences ; not, indeed, 
that we have any positive evidence that mind, as such, ever 
intermits its activity, but that we know that sleep modifies, 
controls, and sometimes obliterates, that activity as a con- 
scious fact. The phenomena of dreams, while they give us 
reason to suspect that mind is never wholly inactive, do not 
conclusively prove the fact, while they do demonstrate that 
sleep essentially modifies our actual mental processes, when 
we do recover them in consciousness more or less perfectly. 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 169 

^ 11. Final Cause of Sleep. — Sleep, although it is a psy- 
chical as well as a physical phenomenon, is essentially an 
affection of the brain and nervous system, and its immediate 
final cause is the rest and recuperation of the cerebral and 
nervous energies. Mediately, it results in the corresponding 
rest and recuperation of the muscular and organic systems, 
also ; while the cessation of the functions of the brain and 
nervous systems sufficiently accounts for the other physical 
phenomena, and for the cessation or interruption of the or- 
dinary flow of the consciousness. 

^ III. Classification of the Forms of Natural Sleep. — In 
the light of personal consciousness and experience, the sim- 
plest and most natural classification of the ordinary forms of 
sleep is into — 

1. Perfect sleep ; i. e., into that state in which the proper 
functions of the cerebral and nervous systems enjoy perfect 
rest, the senses are locked in slumber, and the consciousness 
of the soul is, for the time, completely cut asunder by a 
dreamless sleep. And — 

2, Imperfect sleep ; i. e., a broken slumber, in which the 
rest of the cerebral and nervous systems is not complete, the 
senses are not wholly closed to the impressions of the exter- 
nal world, and the consciousness is partially active, producing 
the phenomena of dreams, etc. 



CHAPTER L— PERFECT SLEEP. 
Section I. — Its Physical Phenomei^'A. 

T I. Indications of Approaching Sleep. — The indications 
of approaching sleep are familiar, and need but little illus- 
tration ; the most prominent are — 

1. General languor and weariness of the muscular and 
nervous systems ; and — 

2. Dulness and heaviness of the senses. This is pecu- 
liarly marked in reference to the eyes, though it is scarcely 
less obtrusive in regard to the hearing and the other senses. 



170 THE INTELLECT: 

^ II. Physical Conditions of Perfect Sleep. — If we pass 
now from the phenomena of approaching, to those of per- 
fect, sleep, and examine the conditions of the physical organ- 
ism, we shall find — 

1.. That proper organic action is uninterrupted during 
perfect sleep. The heart, the lungs, etc., etc., maintain their 
several functions unimpaired. 

2. That all voluntary muscular activity/ is suspended. 
— We must here distinguish between the action of the volun- 
tary muscles, as of the limbs, and the involuntary, as of the 
heart and lungs. The action of the first is entirely suspended, 
or if, by chance, movement takes place, it is automatic, the 
result of local irritation of the nerves of motion, and is not a 
consequent of volition ; while the action of the involuntary 
muscles goes on uninterrupted and unimpaired. 

3. Normal cerebral and nervous action are suspended. — 
This statement is superfluously evident, in the light of the 
preceding statements that sleep is essentially an afiection of 
the brain and nervous systems. 

Sec. n. — ^Its Mental Phenomeita. 

^ I. Loss of Consciousness. — Loss of consciousness is the 
first, as it is the immediate, mental resultant of perfect sleep, 
and seems to depend, like the loss of the powers of sensation, 
upon the suspension of cerebral action. It thus indicates, 
decisively, the intimacy of the connection between our physi- 
cal and spiritual natures. 

1" II. Loss of Voluntary Power. — This is a simple neces- 
sary corollary of the preceding fact. The will is dependent 
upon the intellect, and cannot act wholly independently of 
it ; where, therefore, there is no consciousness, there can be 
no volition or voluntary power. 

^ III. Probable Activity of Mind in a State of Perfect 
Sleep. — Here the whole question turns upon a simple balance 
of probabilities. On the one side, we have the simple fact 
of blank unconsciousness, and the materialistic hypothesis 
that thought is a simple function of the brain, with the re- 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. lYl 

suiting corollary that, when cerebral action is suspended, 
thought must cease. On the other hand, we have the phe- 
nomena of dreams and imperfect sleep, and the spiritual 
hypothesis that mind has an independent existence. The 
faith of humanity tends, and has ever tended, to the latter 
theory. 

Sec. III. — Conditions of Perfect Sleep. 

■^ I. Regularity of its Hours. — ^This is an underlying con- 
dition of perfect sleep, that cannot safely be disregarded. 
Its power is strikingly manifest in the animal races, espe- 
cially in the arctic regions, where the day is continuous for 
months, but where, none the less, the animals have their reg- 
ular seasons of repose. The same physical law is obtrusively 
evident in human physiology, and the evil results of irregular 
hours of sleep, and of the modern custom of turning night 
into day, are manifest in the increasing nervous irritability 
of the Anglo-American i)eople, among whom such customs 
are specially prevalent. He who would sleep perfectly/, must 
sleep at night, and at regular hours. 

^ II. Cluiet, or Freedom from Disturbing Influences. — 
Quiet is here used in a purely relative sense, not so much as 
the synonyme of silence as of regularity. N^oises, if regular 
and customary, as the clatter of a mill, or the beating of the 
ocean-surf upon the shore, do not break the rest of those ac- 
customed to them ; while the sudden cessation of these sounds 
would at once arouse the sleeper. 

^ ni. Health of Body. — Sickness often predisposes to 
sleep, but not to natural or perfect sleep. Where pain, suf- 
fering, or disease intervenes, the perfect rest of dreamless 
sleep is broken ; and, in turn, where the latter is not realized 
from any cause, languor, weakness, and eventually disease, 
are the natural resultants. 

Sec. IV. — Hours of Sleep. 

^ I. Hours of Sleep as affected by Age. — The hours of 
sleep necessary to perfect health vary with the age of the 



172 , THE INTELLECT: 

individual. In infancy, the proportion of sleeping to waking 
hours is at its maximum, and this ratio, ordinarily, steadily 
diminishes and reaches its minimum at or a little after the 
meridian of life, and then again slowly increases to old age 
or second childhood. This law strikingly corresponds with 
the physical and mental necessities of the race, giving the 
largest proportion of time to rest and unconsciousness when 
time is relatively least valuable. 

^ II. Hours of Sleep as affected by Occupation. — Occupa- 
tion has much to do with the number of hours of sleep de- 
manded in order to perfect health. Some kinds of physical 
labor are more exhausting than others, and mental labor, pro- 
portionally, is more exhausting and requires more sleep than 
physical. The physiological principle involved is obviously 
this : the amount of sleep demanded is proportioned to the 
amount of cerebral and nervous exhaustion superinduced by 
the previous labor. The maximum, in this direction, it need 
hardly be added, is reached, not by muscular, but by mental 
effort. 

^ III. Hours of Sleep as affected by Health. — The influ- 
ence of health and disease upon the hours of sleep has been 
already incidentally noted, and needs only to be formally 
reannounced here for the sake of logical completeness. Sick- 
ness, involving physical weakness, involves also correspond- 
ing cerebral and nervous exhaustion, and therefore predis- 
poses. to sleep ; or, contrariwise, in cases of febrile excitement 
of the brain, causes sleeplessness. 

CHAPTEE IL— IMPERFECT SLEEP. 
Preliminary Analysis. 

^ I. In what it differs from Perfect Sleep. — Imperfect dif- 
fers from perfect sleep only in degree, if the radical principle 
alone be considered : but its phenomena are wholly diverse ; 
and — 

1. The senses are but imperfectly closed to external im- 
pressions. 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 1^3 

2. Cerebral and nervous action are but partially sus- 
pended. 

3. Muscular activity is not wholly suspended. 

4. The unconsciousness is but partial ; and — 

5. The power of volition is not entirely dormant. 

^ II. Causes of Imperfect Sleep. — ^The causes of this phe- 
nomenon cannot, in every case, be ascertained with precision ; 
ordinarily, it may be traced — 

• 1. To internal or personal cat^ses— such as the peculiar 
states or conditions of the physical organization, with its 
multiform conditions and complications ; but still more fre- 
quently to the states, conditions, or affections of the mind. 
Any unusual excitement or preoccupation of body or mind is 
unfavorable to the existence of perfect sleep. 

2. To external disturbing elements. — The nature and in- 
fluence of these have, perhaps, been sufficiently indicated in 
our statement of the conditions of perfect sleep ; and they 
are, moreover, so familiar to the experience of all, that any 
specific statement of them is useless. 

•jf III. Phenomena of Imperfect Sleep. — The phenomena of 
imperfect sleep may be reduced to three general classes, viz. : 
1. Dreams ; 2. Nightmare ; and 3. Somnambulism. 

Section I. — Dkeams. 

^ I. KTature of Dreams. — Dreams have already been de- 
clared to be a resultant of imperfect sleep, a fragmentary 
consciousness, of which, ordinarily, we have neither the be- 
ginning nor the end. The phenomena of dreaming are so 
familiar to the experience of all that they need no description 
here. They seize apparently upon all the elements of human 
thought, actual and ideal, and reproduce them in every con- 
ceivable form and combination, rational or absurd. For 
materials, they depend upon the ordinary elements of hu- 
man thought, which wayward fancy combines, indifferent- 
ly, into forms of matchless beauty, of unspeakable horror, 
or of incidents as staid and commonplace as are our daily 
lives. 



1Y4: THE INTELLECT: 

T n. Characteristics of Dreams. — Among the more marked 
characteristics of dreams, are — 

1. Their incoherence. — We connect in them, without a 
thought of incongruity, elements the most contradictory, and 
materials absurdly heterogeneous. Not only are the events 
of years crowded into single hours, but in the brief moments 
of disturbed slumber we live lives lengthened through untold 
cycles of years. At one time we find ourselves flying through 
the air, like wingless birds, or again walking spider-like upon 
the face of the water, as the writer has often done, without a 
thought of the impossibility or absurdity of the performance. 
We talk with men across the lapse of centuries, as unthink- 
ingly as, in our waking hours, we converse with our nearest 
neighbor. No matter how vdld the vagaries of our fancies may 
be, they occasion no surprise to the dreamer. For this incoher- 
ence, no other reason can be assigned than that the mind is de- 
prived, at the same time, of the regulating power of the senses 
and of the will ; it, therefore, acts under abnormal conditions. 

2. Apparent reality of dreams. — Notwithstanding their 
incoherence, dreams are characterized by a seeming reality, 
that renders them, for the moment, most intensely actual to 
the dreamer, stirring the deepest emotions of his soul, and 
rousing it to the highest pitch of excitement and enthusiasm. 
He laughs, weeps, lives, moves, in a fairy-land, with as in- 
tense a consciousness of reality and actuahty as possesses his 
soul in the stern contests of his waking life. This sense of 
reality must be attributed to the entire absorption of the soul 
in the fantasies that engross it, and which seem to come and 
go entirely independently of the volition of the dreamer, just 
as the perceptions of actual life impress themselves upon the 
waking consciousness. This seemingly independent existence 
is, obviously, their signet of reality to the soul. 

3. Prophetic aspect of dreams. — There is no single phe- 
nomenon of dreaming better attested than the prophetic form 
which dreams sometimes take, foreshadowing actual occur- 
rences, which could in nowise depend upon them, with a mi- 
nuteness of detail that would do no discredit to one of the 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. - I75 

old prophets. Many such cases have been recorded, and are 
as well attested as any other occasional psychologic phe- 
nomena. The writer recalls two marked cases in his own 
experience. In the first, he dreamed of a trip into (to him) an 
unknown region of country, his dream involving peculiarly- 
marked horses, cattle, scenery, and conversation. He related 
his dream on the morning after its occurrence, in detail, to a 
friend, and three weeks afterward realized it, even to its most 
minute features. Yet it involved nothing of any conceivable 
importance to himself or any one else ; and was only remark- 
able for the multitude of its details, and for its • minute fulfil- 
ment. In the second case, while driving in a carriage alone 
across an unsettled prairie, on a sultry day in July, on his 
way to his father's house, he fell into a light slumber and 
dreamed that, on reaching his destination, he met in a certain 
gateway a younger brother, with whom he had parted a few 
days before, a hundred miles away from the old homestead, 
who said to him, " Did you get our letters, and do you know 
that father is dead?" His dream awaked him, but he gave 
it little heed ; it was not new to him to dream of the death 
of friends, and such dreams had never proved prophetic. But, 
when he reached home, in that very gate he met that brother 
with those sad words upon his lips ; and his strange dream 
was a prophecy. His father had, he knew, been seriously ill, 
but for more than a week letters from home had relieved 
all anxiety, and his visit was wholly unconnected with his 
father's sickness. Any number of similar instances, equally 
well attested, might be quoted ; but space does not permit. 
The two cases given, perhaps, fairly represent the principal 
generic forms of what may be called prophetic dreams, viz. : 
1. Those which have not, and 2. those which have, or seem 
to have, a specific bearing upon the interests and happiness of 
man. The first was utterly without significance then or after- 
ward, though the coincidences were minute and remarkable. 
The other connects itself with one of the deepest sorrows^ of 
life — the loss of an honored father. Such dreams are real and 
numerous ; how are they to be accounted for ? 



176 THE INTELLECT: 

First. Are they mere coincidences ? This has been 
affirmed, but can hardly be sustained, in view of the actual 
facts. The coincidences are too numerous, too minute, and 
wonderful, to render such an assumption plausible or credible. 
This hypothesis, therefore, can hardly be accepted as a ra- 
tional solution of the mystery. 

Secondly. Are they supernatural? This we are not at 
liberty lightly to assume. There is, of course, no absolute a 
priori reason for asserting that God does not and cannot re- 
veal the future to man in dreams now as in the elder days, 
if there be any sufficient reason for His doing so ; but we 
may not, therefore, rationally assume that He does reveal the 
future to us, and much less that He reveals to us matters 
utterly without significance or importance. Divine revelation 
is a fact to be proved, and not lightly assumed. 

Thirdly. May dreams, then, be prophetic, and yet not 
supernatural? Or, better. Is prescience, in any degree, or 
under any conditions, a natural attribute of mind ? This 
would seem to be the only reasonable hypothesis. To deny 
the facts, blankly and peremptorily, were simply to unsettle 
all the foundations of faith in human testimony. To ascribe 
them to accidental coincidences is to tax credulity to its ut- 
most. To ascribe them, en masse, to supernatural interposi- 
tion, is to posit more in the conclusion than is warranted by 
the premises. The only alternative is to admit that a limited 
prescience is an attribute of mind, simply as mind. To the 
believer in revelation, who accepts the literal truth of God's 
"Word, that " God created man in His own image," this hy- 
pothesis will not seem strange or incredible. 

*\ in. Eeverie, or Day-Dreaming. — Closely allied to nat- 
ural dreaming is that state of mind called reverie, or day- 
dreaming, in which the soul abandons itself to the play and 
the dominion of its own idle and wayward fancies, and lives, 
for the time, an unreal and morbid life in dream-land, that un- 
fits it for the sterner realities of actual life. Such states are 
conditioned, at once, upon morbid influences of body and 
mind ; i. e., upon languor of the first, and upon lack of energy 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 177 

or will-power in the second. It is hardly necessary to add 
that such day-dreams are seductive and dangerous in their 
influence. 

Sec. II. ^N'lGHTMAEE. 

Nightmare seems to be only a peculiar and distressing 
form of dreaming, dependent upon congestion or stoppage 
of the circulation of the blood. It is, in some cases, ex- 
tremely painful to the sufferer, who imagines himself placed 
in circumstances of horrible danger and suffering, and yet 
finds himself utterly unable to lift his hand or foot for self- 
protection, or even to cry out for help. In some extreme 
cases the symptoms become dangerous, and may result fatally 
if help be not at hand. It is closely allied in many respects 
to dreaming, differing from it in the fact that it always in- 
volves suffering to the dreamer. In some other respects it is 
more nearly allied to somnambulism, which must now be 
considered. 

Sec. III. SOMI^AMBULISM. 

^ I. Illustrations of Somnambulism. — Somnambulism, 
though less common in human experience than either dream- 
ing or nightmare, is yet a well-ascertained phenomenon of 
the abnormal consciousness. It occurs under conditions not 
well understood nor definitely determined. Two illustrations 
may be quoted from many well-authenticated ones, which 
may serve to give an idea of their more characteristic phe- 
nomena. 

1. Dr. Abercrombie tells us of a young nobleman living 
in the citadel of Breslau, who was observed by his brother 
to rise in his sleep, wrap himself in a cloak, and escape by a 
window to the roof of the building. He there tore in pieces 
a magpie's nest, wrapped the young birds in his cloak, re- 
turned to his apartment, and went to bed. In the morning 
he mentioned the circumstance as having occurred in a dream, 
and could not be persuaded otherwise until he was shown the 
birds in his cloak. 



178 THE INTELLECT': 

2. The French Encyclopaedia reports a case which fell 
under the notice of the Archbishop of Bordeaux. A young 
minister, a resident in a theological seminary, was a somnam- 
bulist, and the archbishop was accustomed to go every night 
to his room, after he was asleep, and watch him. He would 
arise, take paper, pen and ink, and proceed to the composition 
of sermons. Having written a page in a clear, legible hand, 
he would read it aloud from top to bottom, with a clear voice 
and proper emphasis. If a passage did not please him, he 
would erase it, and write the correction plainly, in its proper 
place, over the erased line or word. All this was done with- 
out any assistance from the eye, which was evidently fast 
asleep, a piece of pasteboard, interposed between the eye and 
paper, producing no interruption or inconvenience. When 
his paper was changed for another of the same size, he was 
not aware of the change, but, when paper of a different size 
was substituted, he at once detected the difference, thus 
showing that the sense of feeling was. active, and was the 
guiding sense. 

Other illustrations are on record, in which in this state 
persons have executed paintings, written poems, etc., etc., 
which they could not equal in their waking hours ; and yet 
others, in which, in apparently profound sleep, with closed 
eyes, persons have climbed up and walked over the skeleton 
framework of lofty buildings, where they would not have 
dared to walk in daylight. 

^ II. Analysis of these Phenomena. — In all of these cases 
we recognize certain common elements, viz. : 

1. A power of abnormal perception. — They performed, 
for example, acts involving all the functions of the most per- 
fect vision, not only with closed eyes, but with opaque bodies 
interposed between the eye and the object. 

2. Abnormal slcill or muscular power ; as in the case of 
persons walking upon narrow timbers in lofty buildings, or ex- 
ecuting fine paintings with a degree of skill they did not pos- 
sess in their waking hours. Here their abnormal perceptions 
and powers seemed" to serve them better than the normal. 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 179 

3. Abnormal intellectual powers, — These are distinctly- 
indicated in a number of cases on record, but are not so dis- 
tinctly marked or so obtrusive in their character as the other 
elements noted. 

^ III. Philosophy of Sonmamhulism. — ^It is easy to ask 
how these things can be accounted for, but extremely difficult 
to answer. There is a manifest analogy between them and 
prophetic dreaming on the one hand, and visions and clair- 
voyance on the other ; and, as will be seen in the sequel, they 
all point, as with index-fingers, to a common hypothesis, viz., 
the existence of certain undetermined mental powers, giving 
knowledge of things not present to sense, nor k?K)wn through 
the ordinary channels of perception. 

CLASS II.— CATALEPTIC SLEEP. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

1" I. Illustrations of Cataleptic Sleep. — The term catalep- 
tic sleep is here used to express that peculiar condition of the 
system known — 

1. As the trance-state, produced involuntarily by mental 
excitement acting on the individual under peculiar circum- 
stances and conditions. 

2. As magnetic sleep, produced by the agency or power 
of another person, with the consent of the sleeper ; and — 

3. Clairvoyant sleep, produced after the forms and by the 
processes of so-called modern spiritualism. 

All of these forms are more or less familiar, and need 
little more than to be named to bring them to the conscious- 
ness of the intelligent student. 

"If II. Analysis of its Physical Conditions. — Cataleptic sleep 
involves in all its forms certain peculiar physical conditions, 
viz. : 

1. It presupposes certain peculiarities of nervous organi- 
zation in the sleeper. It is only occasionally that a person 
is found to fall accidentally or involuntarily into the trance- 
state; and, in the circles of animal magnetism and spirit- 



180 THE INTELLECT: 

ualism, it is well understood that only certain forms of ner- 
vous organization are susceptible. 

2. It presupposes an efficient external cause acting upon 
the sensitive nervous organization. In natural trances, this 
may be a season of intense religious excitement ; in animal 
magnetism, it is the will of the operator ; in spiritual circles, 
it is claimed to be the agency of spirits. 

^ III. Analysis of its Mental Conditions* — It involves cer- 
tain corresponding mental conditions, viz. : 

1. Deficiency of voluntary or will power. This may be 
permanent^ a natural characteristic of the individual; tem- 
porary^ the result of disease or accident ; or voluntary^ the 
result, for the time being, of self-abnegation. But, whatever 
be the cause, the thing itself is a condition precedent of the 
phenomena. 

2. Predominance, for the time being, of the sensitive over 
the intellectual and voluntary natures. ^N^o one who has in- 
telligently investigated these phenomena can fail to recog- 
nize the facts here noted ; they are obtrusively evident, and, 
in fact, in the circles of animal magnetism and spiritualism, 
it would be safe to add that the simple presence and resist- 
ance of one or two determined wills often suffice to defeat 
the ordinary manifestations in limited circles. 

Another fact should be noted. Cataleptic sleep and its 
phenomena, not only presuppose intellectual and especially 
voluntary weakness (or better, deficiency of will-power), but 
they superinduce hoth^ even to the extent of producing, in 
numerous instances, actual insanity or idiotcy. 

^ lY. Classification of its Forms. — Cataleptic sleep pre- 
sents itself under two forms, viz. : 

1. Involuntary, in which it is produced unconsciously to 
the subject of it, by the influences surrounding him and act- 
ing upon him. In such cases there is, obviously, no consent 
of the will of the subject ; but there is, at the same time, no 
actual resistance, and the fact is well ascertained that the 
tendency to cataleptic sleep increases by repetition, and tends 
to become habitual, if not actually voluntary. Indeed, there 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 181 

is much reason to believe that under the influence of habit 
the party may eventually acquu'e the power of passing volun- 
tarily into this abnormal state. 

2. Voluntary^ in which the subject, of his own choice, 
yields himself up to the power of the influences designed to 
produce the result, and, so far forth, aids in its production, 
as in animal magnetism and spiritualism. 

•f V. Classification of its Phenomena. — The phenomena 
corresponding to these forms of cataleptic sleep, respectively, 
are: 

1. Visions^ in which the subject sees, with the vividness 
of reality, scenes which, for the time being, are a part of his 
real life, and which, afterward, he is able ordinarily to recol- 
lect with a freshness and distinctness which render it almost 
impossible to disabuse his mind of its intense conviction of 
their reality. 

2. Clairvoyance^ in which the visions of the dreamer are 
controlled, ordinarily, by the mind of another, and relate 
chiefly to things actual, seen under abnormal conditions. In 
clairvoyance, however, as well as in visions, the mind takes 
a wide range, and grasps the unknown world beyond with 
seemingly the same readiness with which it grasps things 
nearer at hand. 

It is obvious that these distinctions between natural vis- 
ions and clairvoyance, as well as those separating both from 
dreams, nightmare, and somnambulism, are somewhat arbi- 
trary, and may eventually disappear ; but premature identi- 
fication of things involving, apparently, different conditions 
and attributes, is eminently unscientific. 



CHAPTER I.— VISION'S. 
Evolution of their Generic Forms. 

^ I. Natural Visions. — The form of natural visions has 
already been announced, and needs only to be formally noted 
here ; it will be discussed hereafter. 



182 THE INTELLECT: 

^ II. Supernatural Visions. — The believer in the Holy- 
Scriptures necessarily and joyfully recognizes a second form 
of visions, viz., the supernatural. This form, it need hardly 
be said, is illustrated and attested solely in the Word of God, 
and must here be recognized among the proper phenomena 
of mind, wholly independent of the question of the actual or 
possible repetition of such supernatural revelations. A single 
remark on this point may, however, be hazarded, viz., the 
passage in the last chapter of Kevelation (18th verse) has 
been taken in a wider sense than the context warrants, and 
we have, therefore, no Divine authority for asserting that no 
future revelations will be made to man. 

Section I. — Natural Visions. 

^ I. Illustrations of Natural Visions. — It was once the 
privilege of the writer to see two cases of a remarkable 
character of cataleptic sleep, accompanied by natural visions. 
They occurred in a religious meeting in a country congrega- 
tion, among an excitable people, accustomed to place no 
restraint upon the manifestations of religious emotion. The 
known characters of all the parties present precluded all sus- 
picion of, and cut off all motives for, deception. The parties 
were a young lady and gentleman of the ages of nineteen and 
twenty-two years, respectively. The meeting was at a private 
house, with perhaps one hundred persons present, and was 
of a very exciting character. The parties both became very 
much engaged, shouted excessively, and finally, in a state of 
great physical exhaustion, but still conscious, were taken out 
of the room at nearly the same time, and carried into differ- 
ent rooms and laid upon beds, where they soon became in- 
sensible to all that was going on around them. The writer 
examined the young lady carefully, having been near her, 
and, in fact, watching her for nearly an hour, anticipating 
the result, as she had been similarly affected before. She 
lay, for the most part, quietly, her breathing easy and natural, 
her pulse regular, firm, and not hurried, her color fresh and 
rosy, as in health, her eyes open and natural in appearance, 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 183 

but utterly insensible to the impression of the strongest light, 
even when suddenly brought so near to the open eye as to 
endanger scorching the eyebrows. She was entirely insensible 
to sounds, however loud, sudden, or startling, and to pain, how- 
ever acute, as was decisively tested by a gentleman present, 
who suddenly and without warning thrust a needle into her 
forearm until it grated against the bone, making a wound 
which was unmistakably painful four hours afterward, when, 
after her restoration to consciousness, she complained that 
some venomous insect had stung her there, pointing to the dis- 
colored spot made by the needle ; yet, at the time, she mani- 
fested not the slightest consciousness of pain. Her eyes were 
open, and she used them, apparently self-consciously, as she 
did also her hands, making motions as if she were washing 
and wiping herself, using freely a napkin which some one 
placed in her hands ; plucking fruit, as if from a tree, and eat- 
ing it, etc., etc. All of these actions she fully and naturally 
accounted for in her subsequent relation of her visions, which 
were of Paradise, Heaven, and Hell. She detailed at length 
conversations had in these places with various persons ; among 
others, with the young man still lying in a similar state in 
the adjoining room, a knowledge of whose condition we had 
carefully sought to conceal from her. He had never been 
similarly affected before, and on his return to consciousness 
related visions, in all respects, even to the conversation with 
her, the counterpart of hers, though he could by no possibility 
have known what she had related, and collusion between them 
was practically impossible, even had there been any motive for 
it, which clearly there was not. It is almost needless to add, 
their visions were wholly unverifiable in this world, and had no 
special significance of any kind, unless they could be accepted 
as testimony in regard to another state of being, which is 
clearly not warranted by the facts of the case. If true, we 
have no guarantee of their truth ; and, if their truth were 
conceded, they added nothing to the more sure word of proph- 
ecy we already possess. 

^ II. Conditions of Natural Vision. — These have, perhaps, 



184: THE INTELLECT : 

been fairly illustrated in the example given ; and, obviously, 
are : 

1. Intense mental or spiritual excitement^ reacting upon : 

2. A highly-sensitive nervous organism. 

The young lady exactly filled these conditions, and be- 
came, so long as the writer was enabled to follow her subse- 
quent history, increasingly sensitive to such influences, but 
without any apparent evil results, physical or mental. The 
young gentleman, though ordinarily strong and rugged, had 
recently been ill, and was still comparatively feeble, and, so 
far as is known to the writer, never had any recurrence of 
these strange phenomena. It is, perhaps, proper to add that 
both parties were of unblemished characters, and were, in 
ordinary life, modest and unassuming in their deportment, 
shunning rather than seeking notoriety ; and to neither was 
there any conceivable motive for deception or collusion. 

^ III. Elements of Natural Visions. — The elements pres- 
ent in the visions of both these parties were simply the 
ordinary elements of their waking natural and religious con- 
sciousness, reproduced under new forms and combinations. 
The closest analysis failed to reveal any actually or poten- 
tially new element, or possible new truth. 

1" lY. Significance of Natural Visions. — These phenomena 
raise, at once, two secondary questions, viz. : 

1. Are they, in any real sense, prophetic P — Can mind, 
under any circumstances, penetrate the veil that hides the in- 
visible from us, and reveal its mysteries ? and — 

2. Ts prescience an attribute of mind, as the phenomena 
of prophetic dreaming would seem to indicate ? 

It is obvious, in the outset, that we are not justified, by the 
facts thus far elicited and verified, in answering either ques- 
< tion decisively in the affirmative ; and, in the face of the 
actually-observed facts, it is just as obviously premature to 
decide either decisively in the negative, as two opposing 
schools of scientists have, for precisely opposite reasons, been 
disposed to do. On the one hand. Christian psychologists 
have been ready to reject all such facts and theories deci- 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 185 

sively, a priori, lest they might militate against the credit of 
Divine revelation, as expressed in the visions of the prophets 
and evangelists ; while, on the other hand, skeptics and ma- 
terialists have been just as ready to discredit them, a priori, 
lest they might result in proving the reality of a spiritual life 
and a Divine prescience. 

Both processes are unscientific and unjustifiable, but, least 
of all, does it become Christian psychologists thus to ignore 
and discredit well-established facts. The theory of an in- 
spired, supernatural. Divine revelation, upon which the faith 
of the Christian rests, postulates two conditions, viz. : 

First. Prescience as an attribute of God ; and — 

Second. A natural point of contact in the soul of man, to 
which a Divine revelation may appeal. 

But the hypothesis of the reality of natural prescience, as 
an attribute of the human soul, as indicated by dreams, vis- 
ions, and clairvoyance, would seem to furnish just such a point 
of contact, between the Divine prescience and the human soul, 
as Christianity demands. 

Sec. II. — SuPERNATXTEAL Visions : Prophecy. 

^ I. Illustrations of Prophecy. — The student will not need 
to be referred to .the Holy Scriptures as containing the only 
authenticated prophecies known to man. There stand the 
original, authenticated, supernatural visions of the old He- 
brew seers, written and published to the world centuries 
before the occurrence of the events they minutely foretell, 
and the history of the world is the standing witness of their 
accurate fulfilment. 

^ II. Conditions of Prophecy. — The conditions of a Divine 
revelation are obviously three, viz. : 

1. Human. — ^Revelation or prophecy presupposes, as has 
been already noted, a necessary point of contact in the hu- 
man soul, to which it may appeal, sucb as natural prescience 
would afford, if it were an actual element or attribute of 
mind. 

2. Superhuman, i. e.. Divine prescience, acting upon the 



186 THE INTELLECT: 

soul of man, and communicating to it, in some way, a knowl- 
edge of future events, such as is in no wise possible to limited 
human prescience. 

3. The existence of a sufficient final cause or motive for 
such communication. 

Skeptics, who laugh to scorn the supposition that God has 
supernaturally revealed Himself to man, uniformly ignore the 
fact that He does so only for sufficient reasons^ such as would 
impeach, at once. His wisdom and His goodness, were He to 
withhold such revelation. It is idle and foolish to say, as some 
do, that " God is so great, and man is so little, that revela- 
tion is incredible." God, who condescended to create man 
in His own image, would be false to Himself if He did not 
condescend to care for his welfare, and for the cravings of his 
spiritual nature, which longs for nothing else so much as it 
longs for a portion of the Divine prescience. 



CHAPTEE II.— OLAIEYOYAKCE. 
Section I. — ^Evolutions' of the Geneeic Phenomei^a. 

^ I. Involuntary or Accidental Clairvoyance. — ^Perhaps 
no better instance can be given of this than one related of 
Baron Swedenborg. While visiting in Germany, in the midst 
of a large company, he passed into the clairvoyant state, and 
described a fire then raging in his own house in Stockholm, 
and endangering his library and most valuable papers. He 
detailed all the incidents of the fire with much minuteness, 
and announced its suppression and the safety of his property. 
Dispatches received from home, a few days after, confirmed 
his vision in all respects. This incident is said to be well 
attested, and ofiers a fair illustration of one form of clairvoy- 
ance, which, for the sake of convenience, may be termed the 
involuntary. 

% II. Animal Magnetism. — Under the general phenomena 
termed animal magnetism, we meet with a second form of 
clairvoyance, in which the subject, having been put into a 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 187 

state of cataleptic sleep by the direct agency of another per- 
son, is enabled to see and reveal things wholly unknown to 
him in his normal state. Authorities differ as to the limits 
of this clairvoyance, one party restricting it to a knowledge 
of what is in the mind of, or is actually known to, the person 
or persons in magnetic connection with the clairvoyant; 
others affirm that it extends to any knowledge whatsoever 
present to the mind of any person in the room ; while a third 
party extends it to a knowledge of things actual, whether 
present or absent, known or unknown to the parties present. 
Facts seem to sustain the first and second theories, but the 
third needs both rational limitation and confirmation to entitle 
it, not to credence, but even to scientific consideration. 

% III. Odism, as developed by Baron Reichenbach. — 
Clairvoyance challenges acceptance in a third form, as pre- 
sented in the works of Baron Reichenbach. In this case, 
however, the clairvoyance affirmed extends, not to the 
thoughts and actions of men, but only to a natural agent or 
power kindred to, but not identical with, natural magnetism, 
but perhaps identical with what is called animal magnetism, 
and which the baron has denominated " Oc?." This myste- 
rious agent, he affirms, is present to the senses, and especially 
to the sight, not of men generally, but of certain peculiarly 
sensitive persons, who are not only conscious of its physical 
influence upon their own persons, but are able in darkened 
rooms to see it flowing forth, in streams of light, from the 
bodies of men and animals ; from magnets, and from many 
other natural objects ; and are, moreover, able to determine 
the fact of its existence as a cosmical element in the planetary 
and starry worlds. 

% IV. Modern Spiritualism, — The broadest and highest 
claims to clairvoyance, however, come from the circles of 
modern spiritualism, which claim for their seers, not only the 
power to read the thoughts, the histories, and the characters 
of men, and the secrets of Nature, but also to be able to tran- 
scend the sphere of earth-life, and to reveal the mysteries of 
the spirit-world. The latter half of their claim, like the 



188 THE INTELLECT: 

natural visions of tlie young lady previously noted, were 
their pretended revelations less contradictory than they no- 
toriously are, must await some method of verification not now 
known to the circles of spiritualism, before it can challenge 
any rational credence whatever. The mutual contradictions 
of even the most noted clairvoyants, in reference to the 
spiritual world, are so numerous, so radical, and so destructive, 
as to decisively rule their testimony out of court, by demon- 
strating a fatal and apparently ineradicable element of incer- 
titude which totally vitiates all their spiritual revelations. 

In their other forms of clairvoyance, they do not vary 
materially, in claim or in fact, from the animal magnetists, 
and their apparently verified phenomena do not appear in any 
respect to surpass the equally well-attested claims of their 
rivals. 

^ Y. How far Psychologists are bound to recognize such 
Phenomena.— In the preceding analysis we have neither at- 
tempted to verify the phenomena nor to sift the evidence 
offered in support of them. It suffices our purpose to know 
that able, candid, honest men, including some who make pre- 
tensions to science, affirm their truth and reality, and offer to 
verify the phenomena by repeating the experiments. That 
there is something more in these strongly-asserted phenom- 
ena than blank deception must be admitted ; that they are 
what their enthusiastic advocates claim for them, may safely 
be questioned. Science demands that the real phenomena be 
ascertained (^e/?^^YeZy, which never yet has been done in refer- 
ence to any one of the forms of clairvoyance noted, and then 
that their true significance be determined. 

Sec. II. — COMPAKATIVE AlS'ALTSIS OF THESE PhENOMEI^-A. 

^ I. They all involve the Affirmation of a Knowledge tran- 
scending the ordinary Knowledge of Men, and depending upon 
Peculiar Conditions. — However much these forms of clairvoy- 
ance differ in detail, they agree in this ; and agree, moreover, 
in the general nature of the knowledge affirmed, with the ex- 
ception of odism as developed by Baron Reichenbach, which 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 189 

seems to give us a glimpse of the real agency common to them 
all, rather than an independent series of phenomena. 

% II. They all agree in conditioning this knowledge upon 
marked peculiarities and susceptibilities of the complex human 
organism. 

% III. They all predicate, in some form and to some de- 
gree, the peculiar generic condition known as cataleptic sleep, 
as a condition precedent of the clairvoyant phenomena. 

Sec. III. — Philosophy of CLAinTOTAifCE. 

*[f I. Theory of Animal Magnetism. — This affirms the ex- 
istence in man — 

1. Of a peculiar magnetic influence, whereby one man can 
act upon another, and produce at pleasure the phenomena 
of magnetic or cataleptic sleep. 

2. Of a peculiar power, while in this state, of seeing and 
revealing to others things unknown to himself in his ordinary 
or normal state. 

As an hypothesis, scientifically considered, this is not inad- 
missible ; but it is as yet only aii hypothesis absolutely unveri- 
fied. It is obvious, in the outset, that the name " animal 
magnetism " is, at best, based upon a hasty generalization, 
and upon doubtful if not deceitful analogies. The science — 
if, indeed, science there be — yet awaits alike its Kepler, its 
Copernicus, and its Newton. Baron Reichenbach, in his 
theory of odism, which is evidently only another and more 
scientific name for substantially the same element (if, indeed, 
element there be), has pursued a more purely scientific meth- 
od than the charlatan professors of animal magnetism, who 
have usually only succeeded in filling their own pockets 
with pelf, and bringing the whole subject into contempt with 
scientific men. 

^ II. Theory of Modern Spiritualism. — This is more pre- 
tentious than that of animal magnetism, and affirms not a 
single natural element, such as animal magnetism or od, but 
the direct influence and power of disembodied human spirits, 
superinducing both physical and mental results and condi- 



190 THE INTELLECT: 

tions outside of, and superior to, the" ordinary powers of Na- 
ture. This theory is not necessarily unscientific, since science 
cannot disprove, and is not therefore authorized, a priori^ to 
reject its two fundamental postulates, viz. : 

1. That disembodied spirits do actually exist ; and — 

2. That such spirits may conceivably manifest that exist- 
ence to embodied spirits, that is, to men. 

It should be noted here that Christianity predicates the 
same postulates, among others, as conditions precedent of its 
own existence ; and incidentally asserts more than once the 
fact of the actual manifestation of the spirits of disembodied 
to living men. Neither science nor Christianity, therefore, 
can justly, on a priori principles, reject the claims of modern 
spiritualism ; but they may and should demand of it positive ^ 
scientific verification of its pretentious claims upon human 
credence. They should, moreover, rigidly test its actual 
moral influences and relations by its fruits, personal, social, 
and moral. 

^ III. Theory of Swedenborgianism. — This,, if the writer 
comprehends it, is yet broader than that of modern spiritual- 
ism ; and comprehends the affirmation, not only of secondary 
spiritual inspiration, such as modern spiritualism posits, but 
also direct Divine spiritual illumination — the exact counter- 
part of the inspiration of the old Hebrew prophets. It is 
needless to say that this theory is broad enough to account 
for all the facts of clairvoyance, if the legitimacy of the 
baron's claim to be a prophet after the order of Isaiah or John 
])e conceded. But precisely here the theory fails ; the baron's 
claims sadly need the verification which would scientifically 
challenge the credence of mankind in his prophetic office. 

^ IV. Relations of Clairvoyance to Dreams, Visions, and 
Prophecy. — Clairvoyance, like its congeners named above, 
seems to be in fact but a manifestation of that occult power 
of the human soul which we have denominated natural pre- 
science, and which is in man the feeble counterpart of that 
infinite prescience which belongs to God alone, and to which 
the latter appealed when He communicated the glorious vis- 



( 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— SLEEP. 191 

ions that filled the rapt souls of Moses and Daniel, of Isaiah 
and John. Natural prescience does not infer or imply atiy 
thing supernatural in man ; nor is there any thing unreason- 
able or unscientific in the hypothesis of its existence, especially 
in view of an earlier assertion, that to know is of the es- 
sence of mind. But this suggests a more radical thought, 
namely : there is nothing unscientific, necessarily, in the as- 
sumption of the supernatural in its actual relations to the 
natural, since human science culminates in the concept of 
man as an intelligent, free personality, capable of reacting 
upon Nature through its laws, i. e., capable of essentially 
modifying and changing the course of Nature at pleasure, by 
intelligently seizing upon its laws, the hidings of its power, 
and turning them against itself. The analogies of thought, 
therefore, demand the concept and affirmation of a like rela- 
tion to Nature on the part oi 2i>. primary personality, i. e., on 
the part of God. The moment the concept of a free person- 
ality, in the true sense, is admitted as scientific, the door is 
opened widely for the admission of all that we, legitimately, 
term the supernatural. The truth is simply this : the mutual 
limits of the natural and supernatural, conceived in the only 
strictly rational sense possible, lie not at some unknown point 
of contact between man and Nature on the one side, and God 
and the spirit-world on the other / hut at the point of contact 
between man as an intelligent, free personality, and Nature. 
In conclusion, the remark is hazarded that it is neither 
wise nor safe for Christian psychologists to neglect the phe- 
nomena of this strange border-land of dreams, somnambulism, 
visions, and clairvoyance. Its phenomena, however much 
they may have been distorted, magnified, and abused, are to 
some extent real, and are an open door through which we 
may look in upon the human soul and its mysteries, under 
conditions which, properly investigated and comprehended, 
cannot fail to add to our intelligent comprehension of its real 
nature and capacities. 



192 THE INTELLECT: 

DIVISION SECOND-IISAOTTL 

Preliminary Discussion. 
EVOLTJTIOIS' OF THE GEK"EltAL FOEMS OF INSANITY. 

Among the saddest, and yet, alas ! among the familiar 
forms of mental phenomena, must be reckoned disordered or 
diseased mental action. "No community is free from its sor- 
rowful influences, and no household is secure from the danger 
of its possible approach. It presents itself to us under three 
familiar generic forms, viz. : 

1. Intoxication, or temporary insanity produced by stim- 
ulants ; 

2. Insanity proper, under its two specific forms of mania 
and frenzy ; 

3. Idiocy, or imbecility ; all of which must now be dis- 
cretely considered. ' 

. Section I. — Intoxication-. 

^ I. Phenomena of Intoxication. — These are so familiar, 
and, alas ! so frequent objects of observation, that they need 
no description. They may be seen and studied, almost any 
day, in the streets of our villages, towns, and cities. They 
present themselves under the three typical forms of insanity 
proper, viz. : 

1. Mania, or aberration of intellect, more or less marked 
and deci^ve ; in which all true intellectuality is, for the time 
being, lost. 

2. Frenzy^ or temporary madness, in which the intoxi- 
cated man rages like a true madman, dangerous alike to 
himself and to his fellow-men. And — 

3. Idiocy, or utter imbecility — the final resultant of ab- 
solute intoxication, in which, all the attributes of rationality 
are lost, and nothing but the semblance of disgraced human- 
ity remains. 

\ II. Nature of Intoxication. — This is well ascertained. 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— INSANITY. I93 

physiologically, to be lesion of the hrain, produced by alco- 
hol, which is taken up by the blood, and carried unchanged 
to the brain, where, as alcohol, it fills the cavities, and acts 
continually as a disturbing and destroying element, whose 
influence is evil and only evil continually. Thus far reference 
has been had exclusively to drunkenness produced by alcohol, 
but there are kindred forms of intoxication, not less destruc- 
tive, produced by opium, hasheesh, and, at times, by tobacco. 
^ III. Relations of Intoxication to Insanity. — These have 
already been indicated in the statement that it takes on the 
three typical forms of insanity, viz., mania, frenzy, and idiocy. 
The drunken man is as truly insane, for the time being, as the 
legitimate inhabitant of a lunatic asylum ; and every succes- 
sive act of intoxication is a direct, and may become a decisive, 
step toward permanent insanity under that most terrible of 
all its forms, delirium tremens, as well as toward a drunkard's 
grave. Each fresh draught of the intoxicating cup is* a new 
link forged in the chain that is binding the besotted victim to 
the car of death and hell. Would to God that the words 
were here written in letters of fire, that every young man 
might not only read but realize them ! — that the first glass 
of wine is just as dangerous, just as deadly, and just as 
wicked, as the last fiery cup of alcohol which consig?is its 
wretched victim to the drunkard'' s grave. The first he could 
have refused without an effort y the last he has no power to 
put from him. 

Sec. II. — Insanity Pkopee. 

•[[ I. Its Phenomena. — The phenomena of insanity proper, 
typified by intoxication, are themselves so common as to need 
but little illustration. Its forms are — 

1. Mania, or simple mental aberration, either partial or 
total, temporary or permanent. Its forms vary from the hal- 
lucinations of the harmless monomaniac, affecting only special 
forms of thought or modes of mental action, to complete in- 
sanity, in which all rationality is lost, and mental ruin alone 
remains. Some of the forms of mania, and especially of 
9 



194 THE INTELLECT: 

monomania, in which only a single faculty is disordered, are 
exceedingly interesting, but space does not permit their in- 
troduction here. 

2. Frenzy^ or madness proper. — This, like mania, may be 
partial or total, paroxysmal or permanent. It may exist only 
in reference to certain forms or modes of mental action ; or it 
may be paroxysmal, and only supervene at intervals more or 
less regular, or otherwise recur only on occasion of certain 
provoking causes at irregular intervals ; or it may, and fre- 
quently does, alternate with mania, or with states of appar- 
ently perfect sanity. 

3. Idiocy^ or imhecility. — This may be, and usually is, 
congenital, but it may also be the final and hopeless result 
of insanity proper. As a congenital phenomenon, it is usually 
accompanied and marked by obvious physical malformation 
or imperfection. Like other forms of mental aberration, it 
may be either partial or total, paroxysmal or permanent. In 
the latter form it is often the final resultant of permanent 
insanity, in which nothing remains of humanity but its sem- 
blance, the jewel within being hopelessly obscured, and the 
feebleness of a second and sadder, because hopeless, child- 
hood having supervened. 

^ II. Nature and Conditions of Insanity. — ^These are 
strikingly indicated in the actual phenomena of intoxication, 
which represent in turn, for the time being, every phase of 
actual insanity, from monomania to idiocy. In other words, 
the drunken man is, for the time, voluntarily insane. This 
fact proves conclusively that insanity in all its forms results 
from simple malformation or lesion of the brain, and is not 
in any sense an affection of the soul, apart from physical or- 
ganization. The phenomena of delirium produced by fevers, 
or blows upon the skull, all confirm the truth of this hypoth- 
esis. Lesion of the brain fully accounts for all the phenomena, 
and shadows forth the hope of a higher and better life, where 
mania, frenzy, and idiocy, are not, and intoxication is unknown. 
It is hardly necessary to add that this lesion of the brain may 
be the result of accident, of excessive labor, physical or 



SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS— INSANITY. I95 

mental, of the use of narcotic stimulants, of disease, or it 
may be congenital. 

% III. Its Lessons. — The lessons taught us by these sad 
phenomena are simple, direct, and sorrowful. Reason, intel- 
ligence, hope, love, all that render life tolerable, desirable, 
hopeful, happy, hang upon the slender thread of cerebral 
health and regularity ; and this health and regularity of ac- 
tion may be overthrown and finally destroyed by excesses of 
any and every kind, physical, mental, or moral. Reason is 
too sacred a trust to be trifled with, as the debauchee and the 
drunkard are accustomed to do. 



BOOK II.— THE SENSIBILITIES. 



PRELIMINAR Y DISC USSIOJST. 
Section I. — Analysis of the Sensibilities. 

T I. Evolution of the Generic Idea. — In accordance with 
onr original analysis, we now pass to consider the second gen- 
eral division or form of mental activity, viz., the Sensibilities, 
including the emotional and passional elements in the soul of 
man. This is no strange or foreign region, known only to a 
few favored sons of men, but the common inheritance of hu- 
manity, the theatre of all our hopes and fears, our joys and 
sorrows, our happiness or misery. Men may not remember, 
imagine, or reason ; but they cannot choose but feel, enjoy, 
suffer, love, and hate. In truth, in the sensibilities we enter 
upon the most universalj all-pervading element of soul-life. 

^ II. Relations of the Sensibilities to the Intellect. — These 
have already, perhaps, been sufficiently indicated, and need 
only, for the sake of distinctness, to be formally reannounced 
here. The sensibilities, in all their manifestations, postulate 
or presuppose antecedent intellections. This precedence may 
be, and often is, distinguishable only logically, and not chro- 
nologically, since the perception and the emotion may be, in 
any given instance, practically simultaneous. 

But while intellection logically antecedes and conditions 
the action of the sensibilities, the fact must not be over- 
looked that the latter in turn, both immediately and mediately 
through the will, react upon and stimulate the intellect to in- 
tenser and more persistent action. 



CLASSIFICATION. 197 

T III. Importance of the Sensibilities. — In the light of pre- 
ceding discussions, it were idle to stop to argue the relative 
importance of the sensibilities as functions of the soul, or to 
enforce the necessity of carefully investigating their phe- 
nomena. These facts are so obtrusively evident as to be in 
fact axiomatic ; but, as might naturally be expected, the diffi- 
culties of the study are in direct proportion to its intrinsic 
and relative importance ; yet they are neither insuperable nor 
discouraging to the earnest student. 

Sec. II. — Classificatioi^ of the Sensibilities. 

^ I. General Principles of Classification. — The direct and 
positive nature of the processes of intellection suggested at 
once, if it did not necessitate, the general principles of classifi- 
cation actually adopted ; but the relations of the sensibilities 
to each other are not so marked, and it is not so easy to deter- 
mine principles of classification which will decisively and 
satisfactorily part the sensibilities into appropriate and natu- 
ral groups. This difficulty is indicated, as we might ration- 
ally have anticipated it would be, by the variety of terms 
used in popular language to express the phenomena and af- 
fections of the sensitive nature. The thoughtful student here, 
as well as elsewhere, will find in this spontaneous conscious- 
ness of humanity, i. e., in popular language, a valuable guide 
to a true scientific classification. 

The most general as well as the most obvious principle 
of classification of the sensibilities arises out of their relations 
to the will and the phenomena of volition, and is into : first, 
those that do not, and, second, those that do, act upon the 
will directly in the relation of motives to volition. 

^ II. Evolution of the Emotions. — Tested by the principle 
of division noted above, the first general class or order of the 
sensibilities that emerges in consciousness is that ordinarily 
represented by the generic term Emotions. As thus con- 
ceived, it includes all those states or affections of the sensi- 
bilities, whether simple or complex, which result merely in 
an affection of the sensitive nature, and do not immediately 



198 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

act upon the will in the relation of motives to choice ; such 
as emotions of beauty, of sublimity, etc., etc. 

^ in. Evolution of the Desires. — The second general class 
of the sensibilities evolved by the application of this principle 
of division may be denominated, generically^ Desires-; and it 
formally includes under it all those states or affections of the 
soul which act, or tend to act, upon the will in the relation 
of motives to volition. It is obvious that this use of the term 
desire is, in the true sense, generic, and is broader than its 
popular use warrants; but the principle of division here 
adopted seems to be the only philosophic one ; while the term 
desire, as the name of the central class of those states or af- 
fections of the soul which act upon the will in the relation of 
motives to volition, seemed best fitted to the uses of a generic 
name for the whole class of any word at our disposal. 

The whole department of the sensibilities may therefore, 
from this stand-point, be exhaustively considered under the 
two general heads, or divisions, viz. : 

Division I. The Emotions. 

Division II. The Desires. 



THE SENSIBILITIES : DIVISION FIRST. 

THE EMOTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

Section- I. — Katfre of the Emotions. 

^ I. Their Essential Characteristics. — The emotions are 
known only in the light of the personal consciousness. As 
original elements of soul-life, they are indefinable save to the 
consciousness ; and any definition of them can serve no other 
purpose than to point the individual consciousness to the par- 
ticular state or affection of the soul intended in the concrete 
instance. Their special characteristics, as compared with the 
desires, are : 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 199 

1. Intensity of action for the time being ; and — 

2. Instability of duration or activity. 

In these two respects they are decisively discriminated 
from the desires, whose characteristic element is persistence. 

% n. Their Relations to the Intellect. — These have already 
been indicated, and may be reduced to the single category 
of logical dependence y we here emphasize the adjective logi- 
cal^ since at times, practically, emotions are indistinguishable, 
chronologically^ from perceptions, and yet in all cases there 
must be a perception of beauty, sublimity, etc., etc., before 
the corresponding emotion can be awakened. 

^ III. Pinal Cause of the Emotions. — ^This may be logi- 
cally evolved under two general heads, viz. : 

1. Human pleasure^ or happiness ; and — 

2. Human development^ or perfection. 

These are related to each other as a proximate end is re- 
lated to a means to a higher end, which, in this instance, from 
the Christian standpoint might be considered as the fulfilment 
at once of man's destiny and of the Divine Will. 

Sec. II. — Classificatio^t of the Emotions. 

^I. General Principle of Classification. — The obvious 
principle, according to which the emotions must be parted 
into classes, is involved in their several relations : 

1. To the physical organism and its complex states and 
affections ; and — 

2. To the rational, or, rather, spiritual nature of man. It 
only remains, therefore, to apply this principle, in order to 
evolve at once the various species of the genus Emotions. 

^ n. Evolution of the Physical Emotions.— The Feelings. 
— Applying, therefore, this general law or principle of division 
to our complex sensitive states, there emerges at once, in con- 
sciousness, a class of states or affections which we are accus- 
tomed to call the Feelings. Their distinctive characteristic 
is, that they are dependent, directly and immediately, upon 
the states or affections of the physical organism, and always 
accompany some affection of one or more of the special or 



200 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

general senses ; and hence they have been, by some writers, 
classed under the head of special products of sensation. 
Such, for example, are the feelings of heat and cold^ of com- 
fort and discomfort^ of languor and weari7iess, etc., etc. But 
in this case, as in the allied phenomena of sensation, we must 
discriminate accurately between the actual physical state and 
the resulting psychical affection, which we rightly denomi' 
nate, in view of its double relations, a feeling, and class with 
the emotions. 

^ ni. Evolution of the Physio-Psychical Emotions. — 
These, like the preceding class, are based in part, directly 
and immediately, upon states or affections of the physical 
organism ; but, unlike them, they involve at the same time a 
rational or spiritual element, which is often the exciting or 
provoking cause of the peculiar physical state or affection. 
They connect themselves specifically with the physiological 
phenomena of temperament, and are largely dependent upon 
these peculiarities of the individual organism. Under this 
general class we recognize, among others, such states as 
cheerfulness and melancholy^ interest and enniii^ and anxie- 
ty and indifference. The remark is as appropriate here as any 
where, and is necessary, that no exhaustive enumeration of 
either the emotions or desires is either necessary or desir- 
able. Generic completeness satisfies the necessities of the 
problem. 

^ lY. Evolution of the Psychical Emotions. — These con- 
stitute the true generic type of the whole class, and are 
essentially states or affections of the soul, based upon rational 
.or spiritual^ and not upon physical or organic conditions. 
Under this class are included, among others, our emotions 
of surprise^ wonder^ beauty^ sublimity^ etc., etc., which are 
all based, according to our previous definition, upon our 
rational or spiritual perceptions, and not upon the states or 
affections of the physical organism. 

^ Y. The Term Emotion here used in a Generic Sense. 
— ^It may not be improper here, for the sake of distinctness, 
to note the fact, discretely, that the term emotion is used in 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 201 

this treatise in a broad generic^ and not in its ordinary specific^ 
sense. This is, perhaps, unfortunate, but there seemed to be 
no alternative, as no more significant word was available, and 
the principle of classification adopted necessitated the group- 
ing together under one genus of the feelings proper and the 
emotions proper^ as well as the intermediate physio-psychical 
affections. 



THE EMOTIONS-CLASS FIRST. 

PHYSICAL: THE FEELINGS. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

1" I. The Nature of the Feelings. — Like other primitive 
states, the leelings are definable only in and to the human 
consciousness. They are the simple mental expressions or 
exponents of our actual physical states or affections. The 
relation between the two is analogous to that between the 
actual impression made upon an organ of sense and the sub- 
jective sensation resulting from it. In this case, as in that, 
the mode of the relation between the physical and psychical 
elements is unknown. 

^ II. Classification of the Feelings. — The feelings, gener- 
ically considered, may be divided into two classes, corre- 
sponding to the positive and negative states or conditions of 
the physical organism, as follows : 

1. Negative states of the organism, as weariness, languor, 
discomfort, etc., etc. 

2. Positive states of the organism, as vitality, pain, pleas- 
urcj heat, etc., etc. 

Section I. — N'egative States of the Oeganism. 

^ I. Physical Weakness. — Physical weakness is a* once a 
physical fact and a conscious feeling, and enters, at times, as 
a fatal factor into the complex problem of human life. The 
fact of physical weakness, singly and apart from its mental 
and moral relations, is of comparatively little import ; but 



202 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

when its paralyzing influence enters into the feelings, and 
reacts upon the vital energies of the soul, it is to the man as 
the breath of the deadly Bohun Upas of Java, the signet of 
death. The true man rises superior to such influences, and 
vitalizes failing physical energies by the omnipotence of a 
resolute Avill, while the coward droops and dies, simply be- 
cause he has not mental fortitude sufficient to overcome 
morbid physical weakness. 

^ II. Physical Weariness. — This, like the preceding, is the 
resultant of certain antecedent conditions more or less clearly 
defined to the consciousness of the individual, such as ex- 
hausting physical or mental labor. It may extend to the 
whole organism, or it may localize itself in som« special or- 
gan or member of the body ; but is identical in principle and 
relations in either case. Like its congener noted above, it is 
strongly influenced or controlled by the power of a resolute 
will, and is in turn capable of reacting powerfully on a weak 
or irresolute nature. 

^ III. Physical Discomfort. — Kindred to those feelings al- 
ready noted, but yet differing from them, is that indefinable 
state recognized as a feeling of discomfort. In such cases, 
men do not say, " I am weak, or weary, or in pain," but " I am 
uncomfortable^'* and, in many cases, are utterly unable to lo- 
calize the feeling itself, or to determine its cause or causes. 
They recognize the feeling as real, and refer it to their physi- 
cal organisms, however little, sometimes, they are able to 
comprehend its causes or its cure. These three forms of neg- 
ative states or feelings may fairly be taken as specimens of 
the class ; to enumerate them all would be useless, if practi- 
cable. 

^ IV. Final Cause of these Feelings. — The final cause of 
these states is, obviously, to impose a check upon the desires 
and volitions of men, and to prevent undue exertion and 
permanent injury to the delicate physical organism. Each 
of the states noted is the expression of a demand of Nature 
for rest and repose, which ordinarily it is unsafe to ignore 
or refuse. 



i 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 203 

Sec. II. — Positive Affections of the Oeganism. 

^ I. Physical Strength, or Conscious Vitality. — There is no 
one of the feelings common to men more intrinsically pleasant 
or grateful to the soul than the sense of conscious vitality — 
. strength, power — which throbs in the heart and animates the 
life of the young man as he goes forth to do and dare for his 
country, for humanity, and for God. It is no mere negative 
state, like weakness or weariness, but an intense consciousness 
of inborn vitality and strength, which, reacting upon the soul, 
quickens its perceptions, intensifies its emotions, stimulates 
desire, and vitalizes and energizes volition. 

•jf II. Pain and Pleasure. — Few feelings are more familiar 
to man than pain and pleasure. The first, pain, we locate in 
this or that organ or member of the body, yet the real per- 
ception of the pain itself is an affection of the soul. With 
pleasure, there is not the same tendency to specific localiza- 
tion, though in some cases such a tendency is unquestionably 
present, but ordinarily the psychical element predominates. 
But in both the presence of the physical element is marked 
and decisive. The mutual relations of the two to each other 
are peculiar and interesting. In the human organism the 
possibility of pleasure is measured by the counter-liability to 
pain ; and, while the latter is less agreeable than the former, 
it is, as the guardian of the physical organism against injury, 
scarcely if at all less valuable to man. 

Sec. in. — Relations and Final Cause of the Feelings. 

% I. How distinguished from True Emotions. — The feelings 
are distinguished from the true emotions by the facts : 

1. That they involve physical sensations, or, more cor- 
rectly perhaps, affections of the physical organism, as their 
central element and condition precedent. 

2. That they are not, like the emotions, based upon a true 
intellection, i. e., they are sensible rather than rational affec- 
tions. 



204 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

^ II. Eeasons for classing them with, the Emotions. — 
1. Like the emotions, they belong, legitimately, to the side of 
the sensibilities, and involve, like them, the idea, or rather the 
experience, of the agreeable and disagreeable. 

2. Like the emotions, they tend to generate desires, corre- 
sponding to their own essential natures, conditions, and rela- 
tions. Thus the sense of weariness generates the desire for 
rest, a sense of pain the desire for relief, and so of the rest. 

^ III. Final Cause of the Feelings. — The feelings are oh- 
viously designed to maintain a constant sympathy and coop- 
eration between the physical and spiritual elements in the 
complex organism, and thus to prevent the tireless, energetic, 
ambitious soul from prematurely wearing out and destroying 
the body. All experience proves that even cultivated minds 
cannot safely be trusted with the care of the body, unguarded 
by these ever-faithful monitors. 



THE EMOTIOI^S: CLASS SECOKD. 

THE PHYSIO-PSYCHICAL. 

Section^ I. — Mature and Charactektstics of Phtsio- 
PsYCHicAL Emotions. 

^ I. Their Nature. — The physio-psychical emotions, on 
the one hand, partake of the nature of the feelings ; and, on 
the other, of the attributes of the emotions proper : 

1. Like the feelings, they are directly dependent (as will 
appear in the sequel) upon the states or conditions of the 
body. 

2. They are, to an extent that the feelings are not, affec- 
tions of the soul. 

3. Unlike the emotions proper, they are but slightly de- 
pendent upon prior intellections, though they may, and often* 
do, react strongly upon the intellect. 

•|[ II. Their Characteristics. — These are marked and pe- 
culiar, and fully vindicate the propriety of grouping them in 
a class by themselves, viz. : 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 205 

1. They are less intense than the emotions proper, which 
at times attain to such a degree of power as to entirely absorb 
the -consciousness, and exclude everything else. The physio- 
psychical emotions, on the contrary, do not seem to be ca- 
pable of this intensity of action or expression, in their normal 
state, under any circumstances. 

2. They are more permanent and lasting in their char- 
acters than the true emotions. The very intensity of the true 
emotions renders them necessarily short-lived ; these affec- 
tions, on the contrary, are characterized by persistence, and 
by a tendency to become habitual, of which cheerfulness and 
melancholy are conspicuous illustrations. 

Sec. II. — Forms or Modes of the Phtsio-pstchical 
Emotions. 

^ I. Cheerfulness and Melancholy. — These two affections 
may fairly be taken as true types of the whole class of physio- 
psychical emotions. They represent states or habits of mind 
rather than simple transient emotions ; and — 

1. Their nature. — This is familiarly know in conscious- 
ness, and is a marked and important element of mental devel- 
opment, and, in fact, of mental power. We instinctively refer 
to this element in all our estimates of human character, recog- 
nizing this or that temperament as cheerful or melancholy ; 
and we just as instinctively recognize the fact that the in- 
fluence of these temperaments is contagious in the social 
circle. 

2. Their causes or conditions. — The fact has been already 
noted that these affections or states of the soul depend largely 
upon the physical organism and its conditions, or, as we fa- 
miliarly say, upon the temperament. So strong, indeed, has 
been this conviction in the past, that some physiologists have 
fixed upon the spleen as the physical organ or seat of melan- 
cboly. The fact is well ascertained that both states exist, 
independently of any proper intellectual causes. Men are 
cheerful in the midst of abundant causes for melancholy, and 
melancholy despite the most rational causes for cheerfulness. 



206 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

3. Their relations. — Cheerfulness and melancholy have 
already been noted as decided elements of social and moral 
power. As temperaments, they react strongly upon all the 
elements of soul-life, and limit and determine, to a consider- 
able extent, their characters and development. They react 
still more powerfully at times upon the relations of the in- 
dividual to his fellow-men, and modify and sometimes deter- 
mine the sphere of his influence over them. Ordinarily, a 
cheerful man attracts, and a melancholy man repels others. 

The fact has been noted that these states are but slightly 
and indirectly under the control of the intellect and the will, 
yet man is able to modify and control them, both directly and 
indirectly, by his power over the conditions of his own physi- 
cal life. Melancholy, especially, is predisposed to become 
chronic and abnormal, and to result in confirmed hypochon- 
driasis, which in turn sometimes ultimates in complete in- 
sanity. 

The peculiar form of melancholy called the poetic may be 
deemed worthy of a passing notice, though it may fairly be 
questioned whether its relations to poetic genius are not 
rather accidental than essential ; the fact, however, cannot be 
denied that some of our greatest poets have been infected 
with it. 

1" II. Interest and Ennui. — Analogous to, and yet differ- 
ing from, cheerfulness and melancholy, we recognize the corre- 
lated mental states denominated interest and e?inm, which, 
in some persons, are as marked characteristics as their con- 
geners. In fact, they are not only analogous, but also, ordi- 
narily, coexisting states. The cheerful man is commonly 
eager, watchful, interested in every thing that concerns him- 
self or his fellow-men, thinking nothing to be foreign to him 
that pertains to humanity ; the melancholy man, on the con- 
trary, is usually sluggish and uninterested in any thing — in a 
word, is ennuye. This phenomenon is readily accounted for 
by the fact that, the complementary states compared, both 
depend largely upon analogous, if not in some cases upon 
identical, conditions of the physical organism. We note : 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 207 

1. Tlie conditions or causes of interest and ennui. — These 
are obviously twofold, viz. ; 

(a) Physical^ i. e., pertaining chiefly to what is familiarly 
known as temperament. Every thoughtful student has noted 
the comparative ease with which he is able to apply his mind 
to a given subject in certain states or conditions of his physi- 
cal organism, and the almost utter impossibility of shaking 
off the listlessness and ennui that have seized upon him under 
the influence of opposite conditions. 

(6) Intellectual and moral^ i. e., causes depending upon 
personal character and its influences, as well as upon the 
rational motives to action, present to the intelligence, and, 
through it, acting upon the soul. Here the problem of the 
synthesis of the physical and rational elements in these physio- 
psychicaV states becomes exceedingly complex, and merits an 
investigation that cannot be given to it here ; it must sufiice 
to call attention to its intrinsic difficulties and importance. 

2. Their psychological relations. — Interest and ennui react 
upon the whole physical and mental natures of man, as well 
as upon all his social and moral relations. The first fits him 
for every relation and duty of life, the second unfits him for 
every thing save listless inanition. I^ormally the one should 
be the regular, the other the exceptional, state of the soul, and 
is normal only as a provocative to necessary rest and sleep. 
Its final cause, as an element of man's complex nature, un- 
doubtedly is to prevent too unceasing activity, by taking 
away its stimulus. Morbid or chronic ennui is perhaps the 
most miserable subjective state known to man on earth. 

\ III. Anxiety and Indifference. — Varying from, and yet 
analogous to, interest and ennui., are the correlated states 
known as anxiety and indifference. We consider : 

1. Their nature. — Anxiety and indifference as affections 
of the soul are so familiar as to need no definition. Their 
analogy to interest and ennui is marked and decisive ; and 
yet they may be definitely discriminated by the fact that the 
latter are general states of the soul, extending,- to all the ob- 
jects that concern it, with almost equal impartiality, while 



208 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

anxiety and indifference fasten upon and are vitalized by- 
some special object wbich awakens the one or provokes the 
other. 

2. Their relations. — Anxiety and indifference as mental 
affections are dependent largely upon the nervous organiza- 
tion of the individual. Men instinctively recognize this, and 
say of the anxious man, " He is nervous ; " of the indifferent 
man, "His pulse is quiet;" in either case recognizing the 
direct relation between 'the 'mental affection and the physi- 
cal state. No psychological fact is better ascertained than 
that anxiety^ no matter how deep and lasting the interest felt, 
cannot coexist with certain types of physical and nervous 
organization, or, in other words, with certain temperaments. 

THE EMOTIONS: CLASS THIRD. 

PSYCHICAL OR RATIONAL EMOTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

Their ^N'atuee, Chaeacteeistics, and Classification. 

^ I. Their Nature, — 1. They are purely rational, i. e., 
they are not, like the feelings or the mixed emotions, condi- 
tioned in whole or in part upon the states or affections of the 
physical organism. 

2. They predicate in all cases a prior perception or intel- 
lection. They rest, therefore, in their ultimate analysis, upon 
our percepts of the actual, our concepts of the ideal, and our 
beliefs in the true. 

^ n. Their Characteristics. — ^Here the true characteris- 
tics of the emotions proper distinctively manifest themselves, 
viz. ; 

1. Intensity, depth, or energy of action; and — 

2. Instability of duration. The duration of an emotion 
is, as a general rule, in inverse proportion to the energy of its 
manifestations. Intense feelings are usually short-lived, while 
moderate emotions are usually more persistent. 

^ III. Their Principle of Classification. — This, obviously, 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. '209 

is determined by the objects which call them into being, or 
in view of which they are evolved. It follows, therefore, of 
necessity, that the number of possible distinct emotions is 
practically indeterminate. All that is either practicable or 
desirable is the evolution of those characteristic representa- 
tive groups which practically constitute in their synthesis 
the emotional life of man. 

Section I. — Emotions of Suepeise, Wondee, and Ad- 

MIEATION. 

% I. Their Natures and Conditions. — 1. Emotions of sur- 
prise. — These are familiar, and are the simple resultant of 
the perception by the soul of something unusual, unexpected, 
or strange, either in its nature or its conditions. As true 
psychical emotions, they postulate, as their logical condition 
precedent, a rational percept, concept, or belief, which may 
in any given case pertain to self, to not-self, or to the relations 
connecting them. The emotion may arise either in view of a 
familiar object in strange relations, or of a strange object in 
familiar relations. The sight of an elephant on the streets 
of an American city excites emotions of surprise, but would 
excite none at all in a Hindoo city ; while there, in turn, an 
American elk or buffalo would excite surprise in the highest 
degree. 

2. Emotions of wonder. — If surprise be heightened and 
intensified by the introduction of a paradoxical element, it 
then becomes, distinctively, wonder. To recur to a previous 
illustration, it would excite surprise to see an elephant walk- 
ing unattended on our streets; but the surprise would be 
changed to wonder if we should chance to discover, that he 
was accompanied by a royal Bengal tiger. 

3. Emotions of admiration. — ^In the last example, our 
wonder would yield to admiration should we learn that some 
wise and skilful man had discovered a certain method of sub- 
duing the ferocity of, and taming, the most blood-thirsty ani- 
mals, and of rendering them as tractable as ordinary domestic 
animals. Emotions of admiration are not, however, limited to 



210 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

objects of surprise or wonder — there are many things which 
excite these emotions that awaken no admiration; and, on 
the other hand, men admire many things which excite neither 
surprise nor wonder. It may, however, be questioned whether, 
in its highest and intensest form, it does not always include 
them as elements. 

^ II. Their Final Cause and Relations. — The relations of 
these emotions to human development and happiness are 
apparent, and, in fact, obtrusive. They stimulate curiosity, 
awaken desire, and react powerfully upon ail the processes 
of intellect, as well as minister to us a pleasure or happiness 
peculiarly their own. They are most vivid, most active, and 
most energetic in youth, declining with advancing years, 
and sinking almost to zero in the second childhood of age — 
" when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men 
bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, 
and those that look out of the windows be darkened." 

Sec. II. — Emotiois^s of the Ludicrous, op Disgust, and 
OF Contempt. 

% I. Their E'ature and Conditions. — Lying in the same 
mental plane with surprise, wonder, and admiration, are the 
emotions of the ludicrous, of disgust, and of contempt. Their 
objects may or may not be identical ; an object may be at 
first an object of surprise or wonder, and may afterward be- 
come an object of emotions of the ludicrous, or even of dis- 
gust or contempt. 

1. Emotions of the ludicrous. — These involve, to some 
extent, elements of surprise ; but invariably superadd to them 
an element of incongruity, either in the object conceived, or in 
its relations to the surrounding objects which, for the time 
being, condition its existence. The power of thus grouping 
images and objects in incongruous relations is called wit or 
humor. Practically, the term wit is applied to brief, sharp 
collocations or groups of words and thoughts ; while humor 
is applied to more lengthy and sustained passages, descrip- 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 211 

tions, or caricatures. Two characteristic forms of wit have 
been discriminated, namely : 

(a) Degrading elevated things by presenting them in new 
and incongruous relations ; and — 

(b) Elevating insignificant things, and attributing to them 
an absurd importance which neither their essential characters 
nor relations will warrant. 

2. Emotions of disgust. — The addition of a single element 
to the ludicrous transforms it into the disgusting. Precisely 
what this added element must be, in any given case, is per- 
haps difficult to determine ; yet there are few who have not 
turned away in disgust from a witticism which, in the begin- 
ning, had excited laughter, but which the one word too much, 
added with the simple intention of heightening its effect, had 
rendered disgusting. It is not, of course, affirmed that the 
emotions of the ludicrous and of disgust are identical. They 
are not, but the fact remains that they are intimately related. 

3. Emotions of contempt. — The step from disgust to con- 
tempt is immediate and direct. We laugh at a weaJc^ vain 
man ; we turn away in disgust from a haughty fool ; but we 
look with contempt upon a self-important villain who boasts 
of his own shame and weakness. The lines of demarcation 
between these several emotions are narrow, and difficult to 
define in words, but are clearly marked to the consciousness 
of the thoughtful student of human nature. 

*f II. Their Final Cause and Relations. — The final cause 
of these emotions must be adjudged to be moral, chiefly. 
Emotions of the ludicrous afford at times occasions of inno- 
cent mirth, but this result is a secondary one ; their primary 
use is obviously that of a moral restraint upon the individual 
to preserve him — 

{a) From the undignified, the incongruous, and the little ; 
and — 

(5) From the low, the mean, the vile, and the contempt- 
ible. 

The laughter, the disgust, and the contempt of society, are 
often stronger safeguards against wrong action than higher 



212 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

and nobler impulses. God has not only thrown around man's 
pathway in life every rational inducement to right action, 
but He has hedged it in with barriers against shame, and 
wrong, and sin. 

Sec. III. — Emotions of Shame, of Soreow, and of Pitt. 

^ I. Their Natures and Conditions. — 1. Emotions of 
shame. — These are the counterparts, legitimately, in the one 
party, of emotions of disgust and contempt in the other. 
They presuppose something incongruous, improper, wrong, 
or sinful in ourselves^ that brings a blush to the cheek, and 
shame to the soul. There are few, alas ! who need to be told 
what such emotions are. It is well, indeed, that men should 
be susceptible, in a high degree, to a sense of shame, but sad, 
indeed, that they should ever realize its power. 

2. Emotions of sorroio. — These are of two classes, repre- 
senting entirely distinct principles and responding to diverse 
conditions, viz. : 

(a) Sorrow, of the nature of repentance, for our own per- 
sonal acts of impropriety, shame, or sin ; and — 

(b) Sorrow, in the sense of grief, for evils endured, losses 
sustained, or friends snatched from us by the hand of death, 
or for any one of the myriad forms of suffering to which man 
is liable in this life. 

The essential distinction between the two is, that the first 
is the direct and legitimate result of our own personal de- 
merit or wrong, and is based upon antecedent emotions of 
shame ; the second is the result of a loss of that which was 
precious to us in itself or in its relations, but has been lost 
through no fault or demerit on our part, and our sorrow is 
the simple expression of the apprehended reality and great- 
ness of our loss. It is obvious, as a practical fact, that the 
two, in any concrete instance, may coincide, and our loss be 
the result of our own misconduct, and thus involve shame as 
well as sorrow. 

3. Emotions of pity. — These are the exact counterparts 
of the preceding, and are, ordinarily, awakened in the soul in 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 213 

view of the sorrows of others. They may also arise in view 
of the sin and shame of another. The two forms differ in 
this : the former presupposes a certain sympathy with or kin- 
dred feeling for the sorrowing person, involved in the emo- 
tion of pity, which is not implied in the latter. Thus the 
Master wept at the grave of Lazarus, not merely that He 
pitied, but that He sympathized with, the weeping sisters ; 
but He wept over Jerusalem, doomed to destruction for its 
pride and its crimes, tears of compassion^ but not of sym- 
pathy with its pride and its sins. 

T n. Their Final Cause and Relations. — Emotions of 
shame and sorrow, in their first and correlated forms, are ob- 
viously designed to exert a true regenerating moral influence 
upon the guilty soul, awakening it to a just sense of its own 
unworthiness, and stimulating it to struggle upward to a new 
and higher life. Shame and sorrow can make no atonement 
for sin, but they can and do exert a purifying and regenera- 
ting influence upon the guilty soul that yields itself to their 
healthful influences. 

The emotions of sorrow, in their second form, and of pity, 
belong to a purer and higher sphere of soul-life. They do not, 
of necessity, imply personal guilt ; but they do appeal to, 
strengthen and intensify some of the gentlest, sweetest im- 
pulses of humanity. Sorrow for the loss of loved ones taken 
from us by the destroyer, and pity for the sorrows, the ago- 
nies, and the shame of our fellow-men, may rend our very souls, 
and yet the very depth and intensity of our helpless soul- 
agony may lift us up to lean on the strong arm of Him who 
is touched with a feeling of our infirmities. The cup of sor- 
row may be, nay, surely is, very bitter to the soul; but it is 
none the less God's message of love, designed to win our 
affections from earth, that we may anchor them more surely 
within the veil. 

Sec. IV. — Emotions of Feae, of Hoeroe, and of Despaie. 

^ I. Their Nature and Characteristics. — 1. Mnotions of 
fear. — Life has its shadows as well as its sunshine, and there 



214 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

are none that have not at some time experienced emotions of 
fear. 'None need therefore to he told what they are or whence 
they arise. They are simply the soul's recognition of the 
presence of an apparently impending evil, the expression of 
its own conscious weakness, and sometimes of its conscious 
guilt, coupled with the recognition of possible adverse power 
antagonistic, for the time being, and superior to its own. Its 
essential elements are therefore : 

(a) Conscious personal weakness. 

(b) Sometimes conscious personal guilt, or demerit ; and — 

(c) Anticipated or threatened danger or liability to evil. 
It is proper, though scarcely necessary, to add that fear 

on the one hand, and its opposite, courage, on the other, are 
strongly affected by temperament and physical conditions. 

2. Emotions of horror. — Fear, when it attains to a certain 
degree of intensity, is liable to take on a new type, including 
new elements, and to become horror. In this new evolution, 
it seems to be generically a compound of dread (the essential 
element of fear), and of disgust or loathing. The filiation, at 
any rate, between this and some of the antecedent emotions 
noted, is marked and decisive. Save its ultimate congener, 
despair^ there is perhaps no feeling known to man more dark 
and more distressing than this, and especially when it is (as 
it often is) the resultant of deep-seated remorse for black and 
damning personal guilt. 

3. Emotions of despair. — In despair we attain to the cul- 
minating point of this class, or group, to the depth beyond 
which there is no lower deep ; to the point at which, not only 
Faith and Hope, for the time, abandon the hapless victim, 
but the Will also abdicates its regal throne and crown, and 
yields up the soul to the anarchy of Despair. Men talk of 
this terrible emotion familiarly, as if it were a household 
thing, but few indeed realize the fearful meaning of the words 
they use. 

% II. Their Final Cause and Relations.— Of fear and hor- 
ror, the final cause is evident ; they are only sentinels, sensi- 
tive, watchful, and energetic, placed in the soul of man to 



DIVISION FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 215 

guard it against the approacli of danger^ wrong ^ and sin ; 
and it is well that men should heed their warnings well and 
wisely, but not that they should weakly yield themselves up 
to base perversions of these normal principles, and slink 
away like cowards, because, perchance, the post of duty may 
be the post of danger. Despair, it is obvious, is but a result- 
ant form of a synthesis of fear and horror, and in its primary 
forms sometimes lends courage to the soul, steadiness to the 
eyCj firmness to the foot, and strength to the arm, and so 
wrings victory from the jaws of defeat. In its ultimate form 
it can only be regarded as God's seal of condemnation upon 
the hopelessly-depraved soul. 

Sec. V. — ^Emotioits of Beauty, op Sublimity, and op 
Reverence. 

^ I. Their Nature and Conditions. — 1. Emotions of 
beauty. — The soul of man was not designed to live in the 
shadow^ but in the sunlight^ and God has accordingly en- 
dowed it with the most delicate sensibilities, enabling it, not 
only to appreciate the actual beauty of the physical world. 
around us, but also the ideal beauty of the spiritual world 
within us and above us. The relations of our emotions of 
beauty to our intellectual faculties have, perhaps, been suf- 
ficiently declared, with the addition of the single remark 
that they are conditioned, logically, upon — 

{a) Our actual perceptions of the real ; and — 

{b) Our concepts of the ideal, whether material or spirit- 
ual. 

2. Emotions of sublimity. — The relations of emotions of 
sublimity to those of beauty are the precise analogues of the 
relations of the corresponding concepts. The one softens, re- 
fines, humanizes ; the other expands, elevates, energizes — in a 
word, lifts the soul out of itself and raises it to a loftier plane 
of vision and to a purer atmosphere. He only half lives who 
does not seek to realize daily, in his own soul, all the heav- 
enly purity and sweetness of the one, all the divine energy 
and power of the other. The beautiful alone, though it tends 



216 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

to soften and purify, may, in fact, enervate; the sublime 
alone, though it may elevate and energize, may dehumanize. 
It is only in the perfect synthesis and utter harmony of the 
two that the soul attains to its loftiest emotions. 

3. Emotions of reverence or adoration. — In these we 
have, at once, the culmination and perfect synthesis of the 
emotions of beauty and sublimity conceived specially from 
the intellectual and moral stand-point. Emotions of rever- 
ence or adoration, however, postulate as their object, not only 
a synthesis of the beautiful and the sublime, but of the true 
and the good also. It follows therefore, of necessity, that 
while these emotions of reverence go forth to our parents and 
to the noble, the wise, the great, and the good of earth, they 
attain to their highest development only in adoration of God, 
the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the universe, in whom 
alone ideal beauty^ ideal power ^ ideal truth, and ideal good- 
ness, centre and culminate. Man in his best and loftiest es- 
tate is never so vrorthy, never so noble, and never so great, 
as when he bows in adoration before God, in whose image he 
was originally created. 

% II. Their Final Cause and Relations. — The final cause 
of these pure and elevating emotions is so obvious, nay even 
obtrusive, that it seems idle to state it formally. It is ob- 
viously twofold, viz. : 

{a) Human happiness, as a proximate end, or purpose ; 
and — 

ip) Human perfection, as a necessary factor in the evolu- 
tion of God's beneficent plans in the creation of the universe. 

It is almost superfluous to add that our emotions of beau- 
ty, sublimity, and reverence, react upon, purify, and intensify 
every better element of our complex nature, and ever tend 
to assimilate us personally and socially to that ideal beauty, 
power, truth, and goodness which we adore. He spoke wisely 
who said: "Tell me the God you really worship, and I will 
tell you what you are." 



DIVISION- FIRST— THE EMOTIONS. 21T 

Sec. VI. — Emotions of Moral Appeoval and Disap- 

PROYAL. 

^ I. ITature of the Moral Emotions. — Above and beyond 
the various classes of emotions ah-eady noted, we recognize 
another, of markedly different character, based upon the 
concept of the right as a criterion of judgment, and postula- 
ting, as conditions precedent of its legitimate exercise, the 
moral responsibility and free agency of man. The essential 
and distinguishing characteristic of this class of emotions, 
discriminating them from all others, is, that they exist only 
in view of or in reference to moral agents and actions exclu- 
sively ; emotions of wonder, surprise, admiration, beauty, etc., 
etc., arise in view of inanimate objects, or of simple animal 
life ; but emotions of moral approval and disapproval cannot, 
and are, therefore, a class sui generis. Two facts, moreover, 
should be distinctly noted, namely : 

{a) They are primitive elements of consciousness, simple 
and irreducible. 

(5) They are universal elements of consciousness, limited 
to no particular race, age, or country. Different individuals, 
families, races, and nations, differ in their moral codes, in what 
they actually approve and disapprove morally, but no single 
individual, family, or race, can be found, or has ever been 
known, that recognized no standard of morality ; nor any 
that regards all actions, taken indiscriminately, as equally 
right and« praiseworthy. As psychologists, we have to do 
only with the actual existence of moral emotions as integral 
elements of soul-life ; the question of the diversity of moral 
standards belongs to the science of ethics. 

^ II. Objects of the Moral Emotions. — These have already 
been indicated, and limited exclusively to the actions of 
moral agents, i. e., of men. IST o such emotions can, by any 
possibility, arise in view of the actions of even the more in- 
telligent animals, no matter how much of surprise, wonder, 
or admiration, they may and often do excite. Limiting the 
investigation, therefore, to the actions of men exclusively, an 
10 



218 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

important distinction at once emerges, giving rise to two dis- 
tinct forms of the moral emotions, viz. : 

1. Moral self-approval or disapproval, in wHch the per- 
sonal acts of the moral agent are the objects of the emotion. 
As thus viewed, it is an integral element in every true act of 
conscience. 

2. Moral emotions in view of the voluntary acts of our 
fellow-men. The emphatic distinction between the two 
forms rests upon this decisive fact that, in judging our own 
actions, we are cognizant of all the circumstances and condi- 
tions under which the act was performed, and, so far forth, 
are in a condition to render an impartial, or, at least, an in- 
telligent, verdict. In judging the actions of our fellow-men 
we do not and cannot know all the circumstances and condi- 
tions under which any given act was performed, and conse- 
quently cannot, in all cases, however impartial we may be, 
render exact justice, and can never be sure that our emotions 
of moral approval or disapproval are either just or adequate. 
It is hardly necessary to add that the second form of the 
emotions noted are in no sense elements of conscience ; that 
is exclusively a personal faculty. 

If III. — Relations of the Moral Emotions to the Moral Intui- 
tions. — The moral intuitions, i. e., the concepts of the true 
and the right, together with the possible forms of the analyt- 
ic reason under which they are evolved, as well as the cate- 
gorical imperative of conscience, have already been given in 
detail. It only remains to determine their relations to the 
moral emotions. These relations have already been indicated 
as those of logical antecedence. Chronologically, it is often 
practically impossible, in the concrete instance, to discrim- 
inate between the moral perception and its accompanying 
moral emotion ; but nevertheless we are logically compelled 
to base the moral emotion upon the moral perception. Their 
simultaneity is apparent only, and not real ; and is only one 
of the many illusions resulting from the fact that our intellec- 
tual processes are so inconceivably rapid that the mind itself 
is unable to follow and discriminate the successive steps of 
the oftentinies really complex process. 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 219 

•jf IV. Influence of Education, Habit, etc., upon the Moral 
Emotions. — The dependence of our moral emotions upon our 
moral intuitions indicates decisively the power of education 
over them for good or evil. In this respect the sensitive re- 
sponds to the intellectual nature with an energy and power 
that are ordinarily in direct proportion to the clearness and 
distinctness of our moral perceptions. If these be blunted, 
confused, or led astray, by wrong education, our moral emo- 
tions must to a like extent be perverted. One marked pe- 
culiarity of the moral emotions, in their relations to the law 
of habit, must be distinctly noted here, namely : their fresh- 
ness, vividness, and intensity, are not^ like the other emotions, 
blunted by frequency of repetition, but, on the contrary, every 
fresh exercise of these seems but to heighten their suscepti- 
bility, and prepare them to respond to more and still more 
delicate moral impressions and distinctions, so that their deli- 
cacy and perfection are almost wholly voluntary elements, 
for which the individual himself is morally responsible. 



THE SENSIBILITIES: DIVISION SECOND. 

THE DESIRES. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

Section I. — Analysis of the Desiees. 

% I. Nature of Desire. — Desire as a primitive affection of 
the soul is comprehensible only by a consciousness capable 
of the phenomena in question. It may be defined to be a 
mental appetency^ i. e., a going forth of the mind beyond 
itself, in order to the gratification of some of its numerous 
wants. Two items must be noted here, viz. : 

1. The characteristic element of desire. This is obvious- 
ly its tendency toward or demand for some object of gratifi- 
cation coordinated to the physical^ spiritual, or mixed na- 
ture of self, or the ego ; and — 



220 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

2. Its relations to the emotions. The desires and emo- 
tions are intimately related to each other, but yet are sharply 
and easily discriminated from each other. The desires go 
forth as appetencies to an external object, and are stable and 
persistent until their object is reduced to actual possession; 
the emotions, on the contrary, while they originate in view 
of some appropriate object, have no appetency for or tenden- 
cy toward their object; and are, moreover, unstable and 
transitory. 

^ n. Objects of Desire. — The objects of human desire cor- 
respond to the complex nature, material and spiritual, of self, 
or the ego ; and accommodate themselves to those relations, 
whether -purelj physical, as the apjMtites / jl9Ay5^o-Jl95ycA^c«Z, 
as the pi'opeoisities ; or psychical, as the affections. Their 
special characters and relative ranks will appear in the sequel. 

^ III. Final Cause of Desire. — The desires are the motive 
powers of the soul ; its incentives to action, and its stimuli 
to labor. They thus supplement the reason, and strengthen 
it in its contest with the natural indolence and inertia of 
men. The inspired preacher, Eccles. xii. 5, gives expression 
to the culmination of human weakness as the time when " de- 
sire shall fail," and with it all the powers and activities, be- 
cause all the motives, of manhood. It is almost needless to 
add that desire tends specifically : 

1. To human happiness, by rendering possible present 
gratification ; and — 

2. To human development, by stimulating to legitimate 
normal activity. 

Sec. II. — RELATiOiS's of the Desires to other Mextal 

States. 

^ I. Relations of Desires to Emotions. — These have al- 
ready been indicated, incidentally, as those of sequence, both 
logical and chronological. Formally, every true desire is 
based upon a corresponding antecedent emotion. To this law, 
however, there are some apparent exceptions, as in the case 
of hunger and thirst, i. e., of our appetites for food and drink ; 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 221 

but this exception disappears in view of our classification of 
the feelings under the generic head of emotions, and the 
secondary fact that hunger and thirst must be grouped with 
the feelings as well as with the desires. 

^ II. Relations of Desires to Intellection. — The desires, 
based as they are immediately upon the emotions, postulate, 
necessarily, corresponding prior acts of intellection. Here, 
however, a decisive discrimination must be made between : 

1. Instinctive desires^ which in the infant antecede intel- 
lection, and at times, even in the adult, act independently of 
it; and — 

2. Rational desires, which exist only in virtue of prior 
intellections, which, by awakening emotions of pleasure, ex- 
cite rational desire for the pleasing object. 

The distinction between instinctive and rational desires is 
important, if not fundamental, as marking one of the transi- 
tion points from the animal to the human being. When the 
infant is in fact but a more beautiful and more helpless ani- 
mal, and reason is at its minimum, instinct is developed ; and, 
just in proportion as reason is developed and assumes its 
rightful sovereignty, does instinct fade away and disappear ; 
and when true Christian culture attains to its ideal develop- 
ment, reason instantaneously supersedes instinct, and thus 
practically excludes it from the life. The relations of in- 
stinct to moral accountability are marked and decisive, as will 
appear more clearly in the sequel. Some of the problems it 
originates are curiously interesting, but cannot be discussed 
here. 

^ III. Relations of the Besires to the Will. — It is prema- 
ture, at this point, to enter into any general discussion of the 
relations of the desires to the will, other than to indicate the 
fundamental fact, formally, which has already been announced 
incidentally, that under the general term desires are included 
all those elements which, in their relations to will and its voli- 
tions, are included under the generic class of motives to ac- 
tion. It is, however, necessary here to announce the fact de- 
cisively that the term desire, like its congener emotion, is here 
used in a broad generic^ and not in a restricted specific sense. 



222 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

Sec. III. — Classification" of the Desiees. 

•[[I. Principle of Classification adopted. — The principle of 
classification of the desires here adopted corresponds to that 
of the emotions, and logically depends upon the complex 
nature of the personality; and involves their division into 
physical^ physio-psychical^ and psychical. 

% II. Evolution of Physical Desires. — Corresponding to 
the physical nature of man and its corresponding class of 
emotions, i. e., the feelings, we recognize a class of desires, 
such as hunger, thirst, and sexual passion, which have been 
classed together under the general name of The Appetites. 

^ ni. Evolution of the Physio-Psychical Desires. — Corre- 
sponding to the physio-psychical emotions and the complex 
physical and spiritual natures of man, there emerges a second 
class of desires, the physio-psychical^ which partake of both 
a sensible and rational nature. Of these, self-love and sociali- 
ty may be taken as the basal or typical forms. They have, 
in popular usage, been grouped together under the general 
name of The JPropensities. 

^ ly. Evolution of the Psychical Desires. — Corresponding 
to the emotions proper, and the purely rational or spiritual 
nature of man, there emerges a third class of desires, viz., 
the psychical, of which the affections and the moral impulses 
are the normal types. These challenge for themselves, both 
in virtue of their intrinsic characters and of their relations, 
the highest places in the hierarchy of the sensibilities. 



THE DESIKES: CLASS FIRST. 

PHYSICAL: THE APPETITES. 

Section I. — General Analysis of the Appetites. 

1" I. Nature and Characteristics of the Appetites. — The 
appetites are the mental expressions of the purely physical 
appetencies of the body as an organism. Their essential 
characteristics are : 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 223 

1. That they are purely physical in their origin and con- 
ditions. 

2. That they are occasional, and not continuous, in their 
manifestations. 

3. That they involve, for the time being, that is, during 
their manifestation or season of activity, a sense of physical 
uneasiness or discomfort ; and — 

4. That their gratification results in a corresponding de- 
gree of pleasure, proportioned ordinarily to the intensity of 
the appetite. 

^ II. Their Final Cause and Relations. — The appetites 
postulate as their final cause : 

1. Primarily, the preservation and continuous reproduction 
of human life, i. e., in other words, the development of the 
race ; and — 

2. Secondarily, human gratification or happiness in its 
lower subsidiary forms. 

Recurring to a previous distinction noted, it is obvious 
that, in the outset of life, in infancy, their action is purely in- 
stinctive, and is not conditioned upon any prior act of intellec- 
tion. In later life, they respond to both instinctive and 
voluntary or rational influences ; and may in fact be called 
into activity by the power of an excited imagination without 
the usual antecedent physical conditions. 

Sec. II.— Fokms of the Appetites. 

The more important appetites have been already enumer- 
ated, under the general heads of hunger, thirst, and sexual de- 
sire. Subsidiary to these may be classed the desires for rest, 
for sleep, etc., etc., corresponding to the physical emotions or 
feelings. Besides this primary enumeration of specific forms, 
there is a secondary distinction whose practical importance is 
so great as to demand discrete enunciation, namely : 

1. Natural or spontaneous appetites, which manifest 
themselves originally, under the power of instinct and — 

2. Acquired appetites, which are artificial in their nature. 
^ 1. The Natural Appetites. — These all cluster in and 



224 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

pertain to the pliysical organism, and manifest themselves 
sooner or later under the power of instinct, independently of 
intellection and volition. They are essential conditions of 
the health, the development, and the perpetuation of the 
human race. At first thought it might have seemed both 
safe and wise for God to have intrusted the interest of man's 
physical nature, and the perpetuation of his species, to his 
intelligence and sense of duty. But experience proves that 
reason and the moral sense alone cannot be trusted with in- 
terests so momentous. ISTot only do these elements, reen- 
forced by parental affection, fail at times to secure proper 
care and attention to the helpless infant,' but they fail quite 
as often in securing, on the part of the individual, proper care 
for the preservation and development of his own health and 
strength. All experience, in this respect, confirms the wis- 
dom of the Creator in fastening upon the physical system, and 
embedding in the human sensibilities, desires and appetencies 
which, apart from all rational considerations, impel man, in- 
stinctively, to preserve his own life, and to perpetuate his 
species, and thus fulfil, in part at least, his God-given mis- 
sion upon earth. 

^ n. Acquired Appetites. — The existence of secondary or 
acquired appetites, or rather .of secondary forms of appetite, 
has already been noted. These are scarcely, if at all, less 
potential in their actual influence upon human welfare and 
destiny than the primary ; they must, therefore, now be con- 
sidered discretely : 

1. Their nature and conditions. — ^Acquired appetites are, 
in all cases, based directly or remotely uj)on the natural, 
of which they are either normal or abnormal developments ; 
and they may be acquired either accidentally or voluntarily. 
Although they may be wholly acquired and artificial, they 
are yet in many cases transmissible by natural generation, 
and may thus be perpetuated indefinitely. With acquired 
and even with hereditary appetites for stimulating food and 
intoxicating drugs and liquors, we are all, alas ! but too fa- 
miliar. We do not need to be told, in reference to alcoholic 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 225 

drinks and opium, how terrible and how destructive is the 
power of an acquired appetite for such destructive stimuli, 
overpowering as it does conscience, reason, self-love, and 
every other better and higher impulse which interposes, for 
the time being, between the wretched victim and his fearful 
appetite. One marked peculiarity of these acquired appe- 
tites is, that their strength, persistence, and power, are usu- 
ally in direct proportion to their unnaturalness^ if not to their 
foulness. Perhaps not one man in a hundred who uses alco- 
hol, opium, or tobacco, really liked it in the outset: ; yet there 
is no single article of food that the slave to tobacco, for ex- 
ample, would not sooner surrender forever than forego his 
foul indulgence. 

2. Their tendencies. — In the light of the preceding discus- 
sions, it is hardly necessary to add that the tendency of 
such acquired appetites is evil, and only evil, and that contin- 
ually. There is no single redeeming quality connected with 
them, directly or indirectly. Even the least destructive of 
them involves a fatal moral element which should insure their 
universal and utter rejection, namely : the conscious moral 
degradation resulting from the conviction that the habit has 
become too strong to be resisted or abandoned, save at a cost 
that the unhappy victim feels that he has not the moral 
power to pay, even to secure his coveted liberty. Of the 
slavery of the drunkard to his cups it is saddening, and alas ! 
idle, to speak; its miseries are written in letters of tears and 
blood, but men heed them not. 

Sec. III. — MoKAL Relation's of the Appetites. 

In the region of the desires, the moral element is almost 
omnipresent, and demands constant and candid recognition. 
Three classes of cases require investigation, viz. : 

^ I. Instinctive Appetites. — These, so far and so long as 
they are purely and wholly instinctive^ possess no moral 
character whatever, precisely for the same reason that the 
actions of an animal, guided by instinct, possess no moral 
character ; for, under the postulated conditions, man is sim- 



226 THE SENSIBILITIES: ' 

ply and purely an animal. A difficult problem, however, 
emerges, at once, wlien the question is raised. At what point 
does true instinctive action cease, and proper rational, that is^ 
moral, action be^in ? Theoretically, the solution of this prob- 
lem is indeterminate ; practically, in the concrete instance, 
it can usually be determined in the individual himself, by 
the conscious intervention of the categorical imperative of 
conscience. 

^ n. Voluntary Appetites. — These, necessarily, are amen- 
able to the fullest extent to the control of moral principle, 
and should be regulated strictly by its requirements. In the 
concrete instance, the gratification of an appetite may be 
right in itself, and yet, under actually existing circumstances, 
may involve conditions and results which render it illicit and 
immoral. I^o man is at liberty morally, at any time, to take 
appetite alone as a guide and follow its impulses ; he is bound 
to subordinate desire to intelligence and conscience. 

^ III. Morbid Appetites. — Under this general head must 
be included : 

1. hereditary appetites. — The fact has already been noted 
that acquired appetites may become hereditary ; and this is 
still more common in reference to abnormal appetites originat- 
ing in peculiarities of physical organization. The mere fact 
of the hereditary nature of an appetite cannot change its 
moral character, nor yet its moral relations, so long as its 
gratification is, in the true sense, voluntary. If, however, its 
power be so great as to absolutely overmaster reason and vo- 
lition, it constitutes a case of natural insanity without moral 
responsibility. A man is not, in any sense, morally respon- 
sible for the existence of an hereditary appetite, but cannot 
escape responsibility if he voluntarily indulge it. 

2. Acquired appetites. — Here the moral responsibility of 
the individual is perfect, inasmuch as the acquisition was a 
voluntary, though not perhaps an intentional, act. Many men 
acquire appetites which they never intended to fasten upon 
themselves ; but, dallying with temptation, they are morally 
responsible for the actual results, no matter how unexpected 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 227 

or disastrous. In other words, irresistible appetite is, at no 
time, a plea for drunkenness. 

3. Diseased appetites. — Here the conditions change: 
what are here termed diseased appetites must be defined to 
be appetites resulting from causes really, or presumably at 
least, beyond the control of the victim at any period of their 
origination or existence. For such he is assuredly not mor- 
ally responsible, and can only be held accountable for such 
actual control over them as is really practicable under the 
actual conditions of the special concrete instance. If, how- 
ever, the origin of the diseased appetite was the result of his 
own wrong action, he is responsible alike for its origin and 
its continuance ; he cannot plead his own original wrong act 
as a justification of his continuance in sin. 



THE DESIRES: CLASS SECOND. 

PHYSIO-PSYCHICAL: THE PROPENSITIES. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

i" I. Distinctive Nature of the Propensities. — The general 
nature and relations of the propensities have been already 
indicated. They are closely allied to the appetites, in that, 
like them, they have intimate points of contact with, and inter- 
dependence upon, the physical organism. They are still more 
closely allied to the true psychical desires by the community 
of rational elements that characterize them. A decisive line 
of demarcation however, as will appear in the sequel, sepa- 
rates them into two groups : in the one, the basal element is 
self; in the other, it is in a modified sense not-self — i. e., it 
is the human element connecting self to man as a species. 
In other words, these two groups of propensities are based 
upon the fact that man is at once a selfish and a social being, 
using both adjectives in their better generic sense. Like all 
other forms of true desire, the propensities postulate the ap- 
petency of self, or the personality, for some object, end, or 
aim, pertaining either to self or not-self, and thus, somewhat 



228 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

curiously, they appear to involve tlie possessory principle as 
a common element entering into all of them. 

^11. Eelative Rank of the Propensities. — The position of 
the propensities as elements, lying in the double plane of the 
physical and psychical, indicates their true rank and relative 
importance. They are superior to the appetites, and inferior 
to the affections and the moral impulses. 

^ III. Order of Evolution and Dependence of the Several 
Propensities. — In the outset, it is obvious that the propen- 
sions naturally arrange themselves into two groups, which 
may be denominated, respectively, the selfish and the social. 

1. JEkolution of self-love as the basal element of the selfish 
propensions. — The first and most obtrusive of these affections 
of the soul which emerges into consciousness, is self-love. It 
includes the ideas of 5e{/^-preservation, personal development, 
and jt?erso?2a? 'happiness. But these ultimate ends of self-love 
involve, necessarily, certain coordinate desires indispensable 
to their perfect gratification, namely, the adjunct propen- 
sions of curiosity, acquisitiveness, and ambition, which can- 
not, like self-preservation, be resolved into mere elements of 
self-love, but which are yet so dependent upon it, as a cen- 
tral element, that they must logically be grouped with it. 

2. Moolution of sociality as the basal element of the 
social propensions. — The social tendencies or appetencies 
of man, both instinctive and rational, are not less marked 
and obtrusive than the selfish. They are, moreover, their 
exact counterparts in rank and practical influence. Like 
self-love, sociality is the basal element or centre of certain 
adjunct propensions, viz., itnitativeness, approbativeness, einii- 
lation, and veracity, which may be denominated social pro- 
pensions. 

CHAPTER I.— THE SELFISH PEOPENSIONS. 
Sectioi^ I. — Self-i^ove. 

^ I. Nature of Self-Love. — ^The fact has already been 
noted that rational self-love postulates three elements in 
order to its completeness, viz. : 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 229 

1. The principle of self-preservation, which impels man, 
instinctively and always, to seek to preserve life and limb, 
body and mind, unharmed, however worthless either may 
seem to be. 

2. The principle of self-assertion, or self-development, 
which demands, as a right, free scope for the fullest and most 
complete evolution of every element of manhood. And — 

3. The principle of self-gratification, which demands, as a 
right, freedom to enjoy life, and all that life legitimately im- 
ports to the individual man. 

^ II. Its Moral Character. — Self-love has been alternately 
decried as immitigably base, and elevated to the summit of 
the moral hierarchy of the sensibilities — errors alike danger- 
ous and baseless. It is neither necessarily evil, nor yet a 
safe guide or standard of moral action. Properly subor- 
dinated to the reason and conscience, it has a legitimate and 
vitally-important relation to the evolution of a perfect man- 
hood. God in His infallible wisdom has determined its true 
rank, in the second great commandment, in the words — 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as {thou lovest) thyself." 

Self-love, like other forms of desire, has both an instinc- 
tive and a vohcntary activity. So far as it is purely and 
wholly instinctive, i. e., itntil reason has had time to inter- 
vene, it possesses no moral character whatsoever, for all 
moral action presupposes volition. So far as it is voluntary, 
its moral character is determined by its proper subordination 
to other and higher elements and impulses of the soul. In its 
proper sphere, it is right and praiseworthy ; when depressed 
below or exalted above that, it tends to evil. 

In consequence of the varying theories, prepossessions, 
and customs of men, there is an ambiguity about the words 
self-love, selfish, and selfishness, which almost wholly unfits 
them for the use of the psychologist ; but there are none 
others to take their places. Self-love is ordinarily used in 
the better sense, and selfish and selfishness in a bad sense ; 
and yet, at times, we are compelled to use selfish as a single 
adjective representing self-love in its better sense. 



230 TEE SENSIBILITIES: 

^ III. The Psychological Eelations of Self-Love. — These 
are so far-reachiDg and important, that, although they have 
been incidentally declared already, logical completeness de- 
mands that they should be formally reannounced : 

1. It is involved either explicitly or implicitly in all our 
appetites and propensions which necessarily include a selfish 
element, using the term in its better sense. Every appetite 
and propension involves the idea of personal enjoyment, as 
an element more or less marked of its own existence. 

2. It reacts upon and intensifies the higher forms of de- 
sire, i. e., the affections and moral impulses. Here the con- 
cealed possessory element, before indicated, crops out in the 
expressions, " my husband," " my wife," " my children," 
" my friends," " my God," etc. 

3. It is legitimately subordinate to conscience, and should 
be, ordinarily, to the affections. The danger, in a majority 
of instances, is, not that self-love shall be too weak, but that 
it shall either be too strong or not properly guarded and 
guided by intelligence. God has recognized it as a legiti- 
mate moral appeal, by holding out to us future rewards and 
punishments as incentives to virtuous action. 

Sec. II.— Cueiositt, Acquisitiveness, and Ambitio:^-. 

^ I. Curiosity, or the Desire of Knowledge. — 1. Nature 
and conditions of the propension. — The term curiosity has a 
double or ambiguous use, which must be noted here. 

First. It is used to express a vain and idle desire to pry 
into every thing that chances to attract the attention, inde- 
pendently alike of the proprieties of time and place, and of 
the real value of the information sought ; and — 

Second. True curiosity, or a natural desire for knowledge 
as such, which is a primitive element of the human sensi- 
bilities, as universal as it is important. It is strongest and 
most persistent in youth, when, perhaps, it is least rational, 
but when the acquisition of knowledge is, at once, most 
easy, most pleasant, and most desirable. In mature man- 
hood, it is conditioned or stimulated chiefly by the practical 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 231 

value, present or prospective, of the knowledge sought, and 
by the laws of habit. In old age, it diminishes, and often 
lapses back into an unmeaning, childish curiosity. 

2. Its final cause and relations. — These are obtrusively 
evident, in the light of our practical experience of the value 
of knowledge, in all the relations of life, both as a means 
of happiness and of personal profit. Like the other desires, 
it has both an instinctive and a voluntary evolution. The 
first has obviously no moral character, the second responds 
to the ordinary laws of moral accountabilit}^ The fact must 
here be noted that this desire, like the appetites, has a special 
tendency to morbid action, proportionate perhaps to its great 
relative importance in the hierarchy of the sensibilities, con- 
ditioning as it does the development of the reason or intelli- 
gence. 

^ II. Acquisitiveness, or the Desire of Possession. — 1. Its 
nature and conditions. — The possessory principle is among the 
earliest developed and the most persistent known to man, 
yet some authors have attempted to resolve it into a special 
form or manifestation of the desire of power. It is almost 
needless to say that this reduction, instead of simplifying our 
concepts, confuses them, and at the same time contradicts the 
very phenomena which it attempts to explain. Possessory 
pronouns are as universal as language, and are among the 
first which the child learns to use. The idea of value is ob- 
viously imbedded in the concept of possession, but must in 
this connection be dissevered from every thing else than the 
mere ability to gratify this one desire. The child claims 
property, for example, in objects whose sole value to him is 
that they are property, and to a morbid extension of this 
principle, rather than to any thing else, must be ascribed the 
miser's insane lust of gold, which is to him the one absolute 
expression of this all-absorbing passion. 

2. Its final cause and moral relations. — The final cause 
of the possessory principle, as an element of humanity, ap- 
pears at once when we consider man as a social being, and 
investigate its relations to the normal evolution of society, 



232 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

which all experience proves to be practically impossible with- 
out due recognition and enforcement of the rights of property. 
A naked man without tools, implements, or adjuncts of any 
kind, is the most helpless of animals ; but tools, implements, 
and adjuncts, postulate the idea of property and the possess- 
ory principle. 

In its strictly instinctive action, it involves no moral re- 
sponsibility ; but the moment reason intervenes, or lias time 
to intervene, moral accountability attaches to the agent, and 
he is adjudged innocent or guilty according to the intrinsic 
character and actual relations of the special act performed. 
The morbid tendency of acquisitiveness to degenerate into 
avarice in its lowest and vilest form, is proportional to the 
intrinsic power and value of the natural appetency, and is 
therefore very great, and, alas ! very common. In the evolu- 
tions of humanity, great capacities for good cannot be dis- 
severed from correspondingly great possibilities of evil. 

i" III. Ambition, or the Desire of Power. — 1. Its nature 
and conditions. — Nearly allied to the possessory principle is 
ambition, or the desire of power. Its original manifestations 
in the child are, however, radically different : the one dis- 
plays itself distinctively, in grasping after and treasuring up 
objects ; the other, by the putting forth of muscular energy; 
the one leads the boy to fill his pocket with real or fancied 
treasures, the other arms his hands with sticks, stones, or 
other more deadly weapons, and prompts him to use them 
alike upon animate and inanimate objects. In the boy, as in 
the man, the two desires are often at war with each other, 
and ambition and avarice struggle for supremacy in the soul. 

2. Its final cause and relations. — These are the exact 
counterparts of those of acquisitiveness, and need but little 
special discussion. Its instinctive action possesses no moral 
character ; its voluntary evolution is amenable to the same 
moral conditions as the other selfish propensions. Of its 
great strength and unflagging persistence, in special instances, 
it were idle to speak, so long as the names of Alexander, 
Caesar, and Napoleon, are familiar words. Like acquisitive- 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIKES. 233 

ness, it has a direct relation to the problems of social organi- 
zation, although it is decisively a selfish propension. 



CHAPTER II.— THE SOCIAL PROPENSION'S. 
Section I. — Sociality, ok the Desire of Society. 

% I. Nature of the Social Propension.—!. Its conditions. — 
The social propension is evidently conditioned alike upon the 
intrinsic nature of man and the necessary conditions of his be- 
ing. It is, obviously, impossible for us to conceive of human 
life under the conditions of absolute eremitism, or asceticism ; 
a single generation would legitimately close its useless, hap- 
less, miserable history. It must be adjudged, therefore, that 
the social propension is a primitive, as it is undoubtedly a 
universal, tendency or appetency of humanity. 

2. Its strength. — This is naturally proportional to its uni- 
versality and intrinsic importance, and may be illustrated 
again, as it has been a thousand times before, by examples 
drawn from the animal races, from the records of prisons, and 
in fact from the whole history of humanity ; but it Avere idle 
to do so. No man need go beyond the sphere of his own per- 
sonal consciousness and experience to find abundant and va- 
ried illustrations of its strength and universality, both as 
an instinctive impulse and as a rational desire. ^ "We recog- 
nize intuitively an abnormal element in the life and character 
of the ascetic or the misanthrope. 

^ II. Final Cause and Relations of the Social Propension. 
—To state this problem intelligibly is to solve it, for it is to 
declare it to be the true basal element of all social and civil 
organization, from the simple arrangements of the primitive 
family to the most complex system of national government. 
Without it, neither the family, the tribe, nor the nation, 
could exist, nor, under its present actual conditions, could 
the race itself be perpetuated. The idea that society could 
be organized and maintained simply from a rational con- 
sideration of its intrinsic value to man, may be discounted 
at once, from the single consideration that rnan could never 



234 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

know or imagine the benefits of society in advance of some 
experience of them, and hence, apart from the social propen- 
sion, there could be no impulse to an original social organi- 
zation in which such experience might be gained. 

Its relations to self-love have, perhaps, been sufficiently 
declared in the affirmation of the correlation and coordination 
of these elements as the basal principles of all the propen- 
sions which naturally group themselves around them ; while 
these sustain to each other a complementary, rather than an 
antagonistic relation. 

In its first or instinctive movement, sociality obviously 
possesses no moral character ; as a voluntary principle it is 
amenable, to the fullest extent, to the authority of conscience, 
and is, legitimately, subordinated to it ; while its moral rela- 
tions to self-love have been divinely determined, as has been 
already noted, to be those of exact equality of rank and au- 
thority. 

Sec. II. — Imitativeness, Appeobativeness, Emulation, 
AND Yeeacity. 

^ I. Imitativeness : the Desire to do like Others. — Per- 
haps there are few propensions earlier developed or more per- 
sistent and important than this. 

1. Its nature and characteristics. — These are so familiar, 
both in our personal experience and in our observations 
of others, that to name them is to describe them to the 
thoughtful student. So obtrusive are they, in fact, in their 
manifestations, that they have been seized upon as character- 
istic marks of humanity ; and man has been defined to be, " a 
creature of imitation." The child begins his unconscious or 
semi-conscious education by imitating, as best he can, the 
motions, the actions, the words of all with whom he comes in 
contact ; and this process ceases only with his conscious life. 
The child imitates the boy, the boy apes the man, the man 
copies his fellow-man, until, perhaps, there is no kingdom 
upon earth so autocratic as that of the fickle goddess /asA- 
ion^ whose painted sceptre sways the world to-day. 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 235 

2. Final cause and relations of imitativeness. — This pro- 
pension obviously bases itself in the social principle and in 
the economy of society ; is one of the great educating and 
organizing principles by which man, as an individual, is fitted 
for, and held in, his proper sphere of action. It is, in fact, 
one of the strongest bonds of human society, and is the origin 
of much of that conservatism which has been so much lauded 
as the balance-wheel of progress. Men, like a flock of sheep, 
are prone to follow their leaders, and to prefer the ways of 
their fathers to new ideas which they do not fully compre- 
hend, and which have not the power of numbers and of ex- 
ample to back them. 

In its instinctive action, imitativeness possesses no moral 
character. In its voluntary manifestations, it is amenable to 
the same moral principles as the other desires. As in the 
case of all other natural appetencies, men are prone to ex- 
aggerate its power, and plead its strength in abatement of 
judgment against their moral delinquencies. The plea, "I 
only do as others do," has been repeated and refuted so 
often that it seems idle to recur to it here, and yet, perhaps, 
no other single plea for wrong and sin is so universal or so 
potent for evil. Nevertheless, it neither deserves nor needs 
formal refutation, for no one pleads it honestly, and a dishon- 
est moral plea it is idle to refute in the court of conscience, 
which must be sorely depraved before such pleas become pos- 
sible. 

^ II. Approbativeness, or the Desire of Esteem. — 1. Its 
nature and characteristics. — Closely allied to imitativeness is 
approbativeness. We not only like to imitate others, but we 
desire, not less earnestly, to win their approbation and es- 
teem ; and this appetency is prone to excessive and abnormal 
action, gaining in intensity, power, and persistence, with each 
new gratification of it. Insatiable as the maw of death, it 
still cries, " Give ! give ! " to its unhappy victim. Ko other 
propension, perhaps, is more liable to excessive action than 
this, and none leads to greater weakness, wrongs, or sins. 
Yet, in its legitimate sphere, it is an element of power, and 



236 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

was, undoubtedly, given a place in the hierarchy of the sen- 
sibilities for wise and beneficent ends. Indeed, the truth 
must be accepted as axiomatic, that great capacities for 
good in human life involve great possibilities of evil. God 
has wisely provided many avenues of approach to the sensi- 
tive nature of man, each potent for good, and fraught with 
blessings, if wisely improved ; but no less j)otent for evil, if 
given over to the dominion of unrestrained selfishness. It is 
almost needless to add the discrete statement, that the de- 
sire of esteem is a primitive and universal element of man's 
sensitive nature, and is, in no sense, a resultant of education, 
or the outgrowth of circumstanoes. 

2. Final cause and relations of this propension. — These 
have already been, in part at least, incidentally declared; 
and yet, perhaps, a fuller statement is necessary. The desire 
of esteem, as the counterpart of imitativeness, tends to like 
ends, and serves directly as a motive power or influence 
whereby society may react upon, influence, and mould, the 
characters of its individual members, and thus make them 
subservient to its organic ends and uses. It serves also a 
secondary purpose as a subsidiary bond of union between 
man and his fellow-man, as well as a counterpoise to the in- 
fluence of self-love in the soul, which has a constant ten- 
dency to degenerate into absolute selfishness, one of the most 
hateful of passions. Its influence, in this direction, is indis- 
putable, and is, unquestionably, on the side of man's better 
nature in this contest. 

In the hands of the wise parent or teacher, the love of ap- 
probation in the soul of the child is an element of power for 
good ; but there are, alas ! but few who comprehend its na- 
ture and relations. 

It must, however, always be remembered that the desire 
of esteem is not a safe ultimate rule of action. It might con- 
ceivably be so in a world of perfect beings, who never err in 
judgment and never yield to unholy impulses. Its true po- 
sition is that of an impulse subsidiary to conscience, but 
« legitimate in its own proper sphere. On the other hand, 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 237 

there are few indications of a depraved soul more decisive 
than an utter disregard of the good or evil opinions of others 
concerning us. That young man is not far from ruin who 
can deliberately say, " I do not care wKat good men think of 
me." 

% III. Emulation, or the Desire of Superiority. — 1. Its 
nature a7id origin. — There has been much discussion in ref- 
erence to the nature and origin of this propension — some 
writers denying its legitimacy altogether, others ascribing to 
it a derivative origin and a secondary rank, making it noth- 
ing more than a conglomerate element based upon imitative- 
ness, ambition, and approbativeness. The correctness of 
either hypothesis is not, however, apparent ; the line of argu- 
ment relied upon to prove the illegitimacy of emulation as a 
motive to action is based upon its perverted^ and not upon its 
normal^ action ; and is equally destructive when applied to 
imitativeness, ambition, and approbativeness. The hypothe- 
sis which derives it from the last-named desires, overlooks 
the facts of its early development and its universality, as 
well as the correlated fact that it is clearly manifested as a 
natural impulse, not only in trained but in untrained animals. 
The writer never saw trials of speed among men or trained 
animals that interested him so much as a series of races he 
witnessed, one pleasant summer's day, among a herd of 
young colts, on a beautiful prairie-meadow, that emulated 
each other in race after race over the beautiful turf. 

2. Its final cause and relations. — If its true character 
as an original propension be admitted, its final cause ap- 
pears at once. It serves as a normal stimulus to activity 
among equals engaged in like pursuits, and pursuing like 
ends. It thus manifests itself as a true normal adjunct of the 
social principle, potent for good, yet liable to perversion. It 
may degenerate into envy, jealousy, or hatred, but it only 
shares this liability to evil with all the other social propen- 
sion s. 

In its instinctive form, it possesses no moral character; 
in its voluntary evolution, it is praiseworthy or blameworthy 



238 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

in proportion as it accepts or rejects the authority of an en- 
lightened conscience. As a healthful stimulus to action, 
•when rightly directed and controlled, it is an element of con- 
summate power and incalculable value. Happy is that parent 
or teacher who knows how to wield its magic power wisely 
and faithfully ! 

^ TV. Veracity, or Love of Truth. — 1. Its nature and 
characteristics. — At first thought the propriety of ranking 
veracity among the social propensions may not be evident ; 
but when the fact is considered that it is a necessary attri- 
bute of man's nature, as a social and not as a solitary being, 
the doubt will disappear. As a natural appetency of the 
soul, it fastens upon truth, or the true, as its object and ideal, 
and makes that the standard in all its dealings and commu- 
nications with its fellow-men. Yeracity is, therefore, the 
subjective attribute, truth the corresponding objective ele- 
ment, of desire. In virtue of man's finite and fallible nature, 
subjective and objective truth, or, more familiarly, veracity 
and truth, do not always coincide. A statement may be sub- 
jectively (intentionally) true and objectively (actually) false ; 
or, vice versa^ a statement may be subjectively false and ob- 
jectively true. 

2. lis final cause and relations. — ^Veracity obviously lies 
at the foundation of all true social organization. So long 
as men are truthful, however ignorant or mistaken, there is 
rational ground for hope for the permanency of the social 
fabric reared upon the foundations of their faith ; but when 
veracity is lost, and faith in man is only a dream, there is no 
longer room for hope. 

Veracity, as an element of human character, reacts upon, 
strengthens, and intensifies, every better and nobler impulse ; 
and, however much it may in turn be stimulated and intensi- 
fied by exercise or otherwise, there is no danger of its taking 
on an abnormal or morbid type. Truth is a stimulant to the 
soul so pure, so exalted, so godlike, that it can never result 
in evil, although love of truth may become a passion. Of its 
value to man it were idle to speak; it is a jewel so priceless. 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 239 

that the wealth of a world cannot compensate for its loss, or 
restore its tarnished beauty when sullied by falsehood. 

Supplementary Topics. 
Hope Amy Feae. 

^ I. Peculiarity of these Forms of the Sensibility. — 1. 
TTie^ have no single object, sui generis, like the other propen- 
sions. — They attach themselves, on the contrary, to any spe- 
cial form or object of desire or aversion, and give to it a 
tinge, a coloring, and a power, peculiarly their own. Other 
propensions have a marked individuality, distinguishing them 
from each other ; these have almost as marked a generality, 
allying them to all the rest. 

2. The^ represent concomitant, and not independent, 
states of the soul, — The thought involved here is this : If I 
hope for some object of desire, the hope fastens upon some 
one of the special desires, or propensions, and adds a new ele- 
ment to it ; but, apart from such propension, hope could 
have no object, and consequently no existence. 

3. They are intimately dependent upon physical rela- 
tions and conditions. — This fact is distinctly recognized and 
marked in popular language and modes of expression. Thus 
men say of this man, " He is of a hopeful temperament ; " 
of that man, " He is of a melancholy temperament." The 
facts and relations underlying these popular forms of expres- 
sion are real. Hope and fear are largely dependent upon 
temperament and nervous organization ; but they are none 
the less mental states, and forms of the sensibility. 

^ H. Hope. — 1. Analysis of its elements. — Hope has been 
defined correctly to be a compound of a desire, and an expec- 
tation that that desire will be realized. This definition fully 
accords with and justifies the previous statement, that hope 
has no special or peculiar objects, but that it fastens indifier- 
ently upon the object of any one of the special propensions, 
and makes that the basis of its own evolution, or develop- 
ment. The expectation which hope conjoins to desire may 



240 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

be rational or irrational, well or ill founded, based upon suffi- 
cient cause, or be the mere reflex of inordinate desire ; but, 
whatever may be its origin, in any special instance, it is the 
characteristic element of hope. 

2. Analysis of its relations. — Hopefulness is an element 
of power in the evolution of mind. It reacts strongly and 
decisively upon the intellect, the sensibilities, and the will, in 
all their relations to each other, and to the complex problems 
of life. N^o man ever lost true power by the predominance 
of a hopeful temperament ; and none was ever happier, 
stronger, or wiser, in consequence of a predominating element 
of despondency. It is true that, in a particular instance, a 
man may be unduly or unwisely hopeful, and may rashly in- 
termit the effort necessary to insure success ; but desponden- 
cy will neither nerve his arm nor stimulate his failing ener- 
gies. In its moral character, hope responds to the ordinary 
law of the desires, and is marked by no peculiarities requir- 
ing discrete investigation. 

^ III. Fear. — 1. Analysis of its nature and conditions. 
— ^Fear is, in some respects, the counterpart or contrary of 
hope. It involves the expectation of evil, both negative and 
positive. In its simple negative form, it may be defined by 
the term "not-hope" (i. e., despondence) of attaining our 
chosen objects or desires. In this sense, it is the expression 
simply of our sense of impending failure in our plans and 
purposes. In the positive sense, it imports much more than 
this ; and, figuratively, may be defined to be the shadow of 
impending evil; or, in plain language, it is the expectation 
or dread of threatened danger or evil to body, soul, life, 
health, property, or reputation, etc. As hope animates and 
stimulates in its normal action, and enervates in its abnor- 
mal, so also fear energizes and stimulates to action, in order 
to avoid the dreaded evil, so long as the passion is kept with- 
in reasonable limits ; but, when it degenerates into despair, 
it unmans and utterly demoralizes, and hastens the evils 
against which it was designed to guard. 

2. Analysis of its relations. — These have already, per- 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 241 

liaps, been sufficiently declared. Fear, like hope, is primari- 
ly designed as a stimulus to human efforts, in order to the 
conservation of personal interests. Both passions within 
their normal limits stimulate to activity ; when abnormally 
excited, they tend to enervate *and destroy. Both, perhaps, 
have an instinctive and a voluntary evolution, though this 
distinction is less clearly marked in them than in the other 
propensions ; they are amenable, therefore, to corresponding 
moral relations and conditions. 



THE DESIRES: CLASS THIRD. 

PSYCHICAL: THE AFFECTIONS AND MORAL IMPULSES. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

^ I. Why the Affections and Moral Impulses are classed 
with the Desires. — 1 . They express appetencies of the soul, 
and not onere emotions, — This is so obvious that it scarcely 
needs to be argued. They centre, generically, in the impulse 
or affection termed love, which, like a true desire, goes forth 
to its object, as a real appetency, and not as a mere emotion 
which begins, exists, and ends, in the soul itself. Love inva- 
riably carries with it a desire for the welfare or happiness of 
the loved one ; hence the propriety of the generic term be- 
nevolent, applied to one great division of these affections. 
In the congeneric class of malevolent affections, based upon 
not-love, i. e., upon resentment, there is the corresponding 
element of malevolence, or ill-wishing, constituting them 
likewise true desires. The moral impulses are less distinctly 
desires, but yet the analogies of thought demand their classi- 
fication with them. 

2. Like true desires, they act upon the will in the relation 
of motives to volition. — This is a fact so obvious, in the light 
of conciousness, that argument is idle ; and on this point, 
chiefly, rests the claim of the moral impulses proper to a 
place in this department of the sensibilities — the analogies 
between them and the true typical desires being obviously 
11 



24:2 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

fewer and more remote than- between the desires proper and 
the affections ; but there seemed, nevertheless, an obvious 
simplicity and propriety in adopting a single principle of 
classification, in the sphere of the sensibilities, which would 
reduce all these multiform phenomena to the unity of two^ 
Sind.but two, genera, viz., the emotions which do not, and the 
desires which do, act upon the will, in the relation of motives 
to volition. 

% II. Reasons for discriminating the Moral Impulses from 
the Affections.— 1. The]/ differ in their objects, — The affec- 
tions, as such, predicate a per social object upon which they 
rest, and to which they tend constantly, as to an object of 
de'sire ; the moral impulses do not, unless the abstract concep- 
tion of the right be taken as such an object, and it be con- 
ceived, at the same time, as embodied in the personality of 
Jehovah. To such an analysis, or reduction, there is, perhaps, 
in principle, no valid objection ; and it harmonizes perfectly 
with the well-known fact that the moral impulses are never 
so energetic and so efficient as when they are vitalized by 
the love of God in the soul. 

2. Their central or vitalizing elements are diverse. — ^In 
the one, it is love, or its contrary, resentment ; in the other, 
it is the impulse or feeling of moral obligation. Whether 
the secondary analysis, suggested above, would legitimately 
remove this disparity or dissimilarity, is worthy of considera- 
tion: but in any case, as a primary fact of consciousness, the 
distinction is real. The unity suggested, if it exist at all, is 
the resultant of an ultimate analysis, and is not a primary 
fact. 

DIVISION I.— THE AFFECTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

Section I. — ^Psychological Basis of the Affections. 

^ I. They are grounded in the Propension of Sociality. — 
This proposition is little less than a mathematical corollary 
fron^ " the pyee^if??^ discussions. The affections go forth 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 243 

and fasten upon the individuals with whom, and to whom, 
the man is united in virtue of his social propensions, and add 
new and stronger links to the chain that binds him to them. 

^ II. They are based upon Intellections mediated by the 
Emotions and conditioned by Self-Love. — 1. They are based 
upon intellections. — Our natural affections, such as the love 
of parents, of children, etc., obviously postulate perceived 
and comprehended relations as the ground of their existence. 
A long-separated father and son, for example, might meet 
and part, again and again, not recognizing each other, with- 
out the slightest emotion, who would be moved to tears at 
the perception of the relationship between them. 

2. They are mediated by the emotions. — The feelings 
that would swell the hearts of father and son, in the case 
supposed above, are true mediating elements of the affec- 
tions, vitalizing and intensifying them, while they them- 
selves result spontaneously from the intellectual perception 
of the fact of their mutual relationship. 

3. They are conditioned or limited by self-love. — The soul 
of man is a complex of complementary and coordinate im- 
pulses, each having an abnormal tendency to excessive and 
exclusive action. Our affections, partaking of this character 
in a very high degree, find a legitimate counterpoise in self- 
love and a guide in the moral impulses. 

^ m. Their Common Vitalizing Element, Love. — The term 
love it were idle to attempt to define. It is known in con- 
sciousness, or not at all, and the word itself is potent to call 
the subjective elements which it imports, into the thought. 
It is necessary, however, for us to analyze : 

1. Its possible forms or degrees as a generic conception. — 
The first and most obvious distinction arising out of the con- 
cept is its evolution, under the canon of contradiction, into the 
contrasted categories of love and not-love, i. e., of love, and its 
contrary, resentment. Each of these terms, in turn, is capa- 
ble of a relative existence, as expressing varying degrees of the 
essential feeling, ranging from the common zero-point of abso- 
lute indifference to absolute love or absolute hatred severally. 



244 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

2. Its conditionating elements. — Love, considered as a 
generic term (including its contrary, resentment), is condi- 
tioned : 

{a) Upon character. — Intrinsic excellence or its opposite 
naturally excites love or generates resentment. Mankind are 
so constituted that excellence tends to excite admiration and 
love ; while its contrary, the mean, the worthless, the vile, re- 
pels and excites, or tends to excite, disgust, contempt, resent- 
ment, hatred. 

ip) Upon relations. — ^Aside from intrinsic character, love, 
and its contrary, resentment, ground themselves severally in 
the relations subsisting between the parties. These, in social 
life, may be brought under two generic classes, viz. : 

First. Relations of consanguinity, which, in turn, may be 
subdivided into relations of blood, as of father and son ; and 
of affinity, as of husband and wife ; and — 

Second. Relations of interdependence. These include all 
the various bonds of friendship, of interest, etc., etc., which 
correlate men to each other in actual life, under all its diverse 
conditions. 

In the two concepts of intrinsic character, and actual or 
potential relations, we have an exhaustive summary of the 
conditions of love and resentment, severally and collectively 
considered. It is obviously unnecessary to spend time to 
analyze the reasons why character, on the one hand, or rela- 
tions of consanguinity and interdependence on the other, 
tend to excite love or provoke hatred. However plausible 
the provisional reasons might seem, which such an investiga- 
tion would evolve, they must all ultimate in the conclusion 
that such is the law of our being ; or, in other words, that 
constituted as men actually are, physically and mentally, it 
could not be otherwise. 

Sec. II. — Classificatiojs^ of the Affections. 

T I. General Principles of Classification. — The affections 
obviously group themselves, primarily, into two general 
classes corresponding to the two contrary generic forms of 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 245 

their vitalizing element, viz., love and not-love, or resentment, 
giving rise respectively to the two classes : 

1. Of the malevolent affections, based upon no^-love, or 
resentment; and — 

2. Of the benevolent affections, based upon love. 
Secondarily, the affections are classified with reference to 

the special objects of the several malevolent or benevolent 
affections. 

1" II. Evolution of the Malevolent Affections. — These are 
familiar to the consciousness, and present themselves under 
two generic forms, viz. : 

1. Negative^ based on simple not-love^ or indifference y 
and — 

2. Positive, or resentment proper. — This implies actual 
hostility, and culminates in hatred, or absolute malevolence. 

^ III. Evolution of the Benevolent Affections. — Here the 
concept love must necessarily be taken in its positive sense, 
as the indifference ground has been assigned to the sphere of 
the malevolent affections. This classification, it may be re- 
marked, is justified by the fact that, in the spheres in which 
the affections operate, there is no proper place for, or justifi- 
cation of, indifference on the part of one intelligent being 
toward another. The necessary relations existing between 
man and his fellow-man morally presuppose, and in fact de- 
mand, some more 2^ositive state of the affections than abso- 
lute indifference. In other words, for sufficient reasons, a 
man may be justified in indulging in feelings of natural re- 
sentment against his fellow-man, but he cannot be justified 
in yielding to feelings of absolute indifference. Such a state 
is hateful alike to God and to man, and admits of no pallia- 
tion ; it is, in fact, the worst form of malevolence. 

CHAPTER I.— THE MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

^ I. Malevolence. — This has already been presented under 
its two generic forms, viz., negative, or indifference, and 



246 ' THE SENSIBILITIES: 

positive, or resentment. The latter is obviously susceptible 
of great diversities of form and strength, varying, as it may, 
from the mere resultant of a transient emotion of anger to 
settled hatred. The former,' i. e., indifference, representing 
the zero-point between love and hatred, obviously does not 
admit of degrees, but must, in all cases, be taken absolutely, 
and is the expression of an abnormal and abhorrent moral 
state of the affections. God has said of such a one, " I would 
thou wert either hot or cold^ 

1. Simple resentment^ as a positive affection of the soul, 
postulates some cause or causes of its being in virtue of 
which it assumes to justify its moral right to a place in the 
legitimate evolution of humanity. A worse insult can scarce- 
ly be offered to an intelligent, sensitive gentleman, than the 
bare intimation that " he is angry without cause." This phe- 
nomenon obviously implies a universal consciousness : 

First. That resentment involves in itself an element of 
evil; and — 

Second. That its existence in the soul, without adequate 
cause, is consequently immoral and degrading. 

Accordingly, it will be found that the personal conscious- 
ness testifies to every individual, that men, habitually, find 
it necessary to nurse their wrath in order to keep it alive ; 
and also to review carefully, from time to time, the numer- 
ous and grievous provocations they have received, in order 
to justify to themselves the malevolent feelings in which 
they indulge, and which otherwise would be felt to be degrad- 
ing. To the same cause must be attributed the singular fact 
that men who are reticent in the extreme, in other matters 
personal to themselves, love to rehearse their quarrels, thus 
manifesting an unacknowledged consciousness that, unless 
thus fully justified by ample reasons stated, their resentment 
and anger will lower them in the estimation of their fellow- 
men. 

Resentment must, therefore, be adjudged, if not an ab- 
normal, at least an exceptional, state of the unperverted con- 
sciousness. It is always an unpleasant frame of mind, how- 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 247 

ever completely it may be justified, or even necessitated, in 
any concrete instance. In cannot, however, be assumed, 
legitimately, as has been done sometimes, that it has no prop- 
er place in the evolution of the human sensibilities. It is to 
them what the whirlwind and the storm are to Nature, or 
pain and sufiering are to the physical organism, namely, a 
necessary concomitant or condition of elements indispensable 
to man's perfection and happiness. Accordingly, we find the 
Holy Scriptures ascribe anger or resentment to God Himself, 
and in Him, as in man, it is the necessary correlated or con- 
comitant condition of intelligent love or moral approbation. 

2. Hatred. — It is necessary, at this point, to note some 
special forms or modifications of resentment which possess 
marked individuality, and thus challenge discrete notice. 
Hatred may be defined to be the ultimate form of the pas- 
sion, where it becomes a permanent and settled principle of 
action. It may exist in varying degrees of intensity and ac- 
tivity, depending upon the temperament of the man, its own 
special causes, and other circumstances, which it is needless 
to discuss. 

3. Envy and jealousy are simply degenerate and abnor- 
mal forms of resentment, and are purely and wholly evil, 
alike in nature and tendency. Envy, normally considered, 
is the expression of the causeless malevolence in which men 
sometimes indulge toward their superiors in rank, in social 
position, in wealth, or in other accidents of humanity. 

Jealousy obtains only between equals ; and, in its typical 
form, originates in the sexual relations and affections. It 
springs up in some souls upon the slightest causes, and often 
without cause, and ultimates in envy, and perhaps settled 
hatred of, the supposed more fortunate rival. It is almost 
idle to repeat that neither envy nor jealousy has one single 
better quality to redeem it from utter infamy. 

Finally, the moral character of resentment must be deter- 
mined, like that of the other desires, by analysis of the actual 
facts of the concrete case. Strictly instinctive resentment, 
of course, possesses no moral character whatever. Voluntary 



248 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

or rational resentment must be approved or condemned in 
view, first, of its causes ; second, of its conditions ; and, third, 
of its extent. 

1" II. The Ohjects of Human Malevolence. — Malevolence, 
as a rational element or affection, exists only with reference 
to sentient beings as objects. It is true that the child or the 
savage may indulge resentment against the stick, the stone, 
or the arrow, that wounds him, but intelligent resentment 
takes no such form, but, on the contrary, postulates in its vic- 
tim sensibility to suffering, if not some degree of intelligence, 
as the condition precedent of its own existence. As thus de- 
fined, the objects of human resentment may be reduced to 
three classes, viz. : 

1. Animals^ whether conceived as non-intelligent or as 
partially intelligent. 

2. Men, in all their varied characters and relations ; 
and — 

3. God, whether conceived individually, as a personal- 
ity / or generically, as the representative of all the unhnown 
spiritual beings, whose spheres of action may intersect or 
react upon that of humanity. 

As a fact, men do recognize, with more or less of univer- 
sality, a spiritual world filled with inhabitants, allied, in 
some way, to themselves. They almost uniformly, moreover, 
postulate, but cannot demonstrate, some actual relations be- 
tween themselves and the inhabitants of that spiritual world, 
who are, consequently, only ideally objects of either love or 
resentment. The practical result, is, that the moment the 
concept of God takes possession of the human soul (and we 
have seen that it cannot, logically, be exscinded or excluded), 
the Divine Being becomes, not only a positive object of ma- 
levolent or benevolent affection, but He becomes, moreover, 
the generic representative of the unknown spiritual world, 
with all its inhabitants. As referred to the Divine Being, 
there is no point of indifference possible ; love and hatred are 
the poles of a true logical contradiction, which admits no mid- 
dle term, no zero-point of absolute indifference. 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 249 

Section I. — Malevolence toward Animals. 

^ I. Relations of Man to the Animal Races. — Reason and 
revelation alike declare man's sovereignty over the animal 
races, and recognize his right to use them for his own per- 
sonal profit, in accordance with the decisions of an enlight- 
ened judgment and sensitive conscience ; but he has, and 
can have, no right whatsoever to maltreat, injure, destroy, or 
otherwise indulge in malevolence toward them, without ade- 
quate cause. For sufficient reasons, he may, at any time, 
take their lives, and, a fortiori^ exercise over them any 
minor degree of sovereignty ; but he may, in no case, in- 
dulge in causeless malevolence toward any of them, however 
low in the scale of sensibility, or unconscious of suffering. 

^ II. Moral Character of Resentment toward Animals. — 
1. Of indifference. — Here, as everywhere, indifference, as a 
moral state, is wholly reprehensible. The relations of the 
animal races to man, as the creatures of God, are such as to de- 
mand at his hands, legitimately, proper respect and recogni- 
tion of their welfare and their rights, which are as truly God- 
given as his own ; and the very sovereignty over them with 
which God has endowed him, precludes indulgence, right- 
fully, of indifference toward them. 

2. Of resentment. — This has already been declared to be 
allowable, within certain well-ascertained limits ; beyond 
these, it is obviously entirely inadmissible. Of resentment, 
in the sense of mere anger, toward animals, there can be no 
true moral justification. That is an affection which legiti- 
mately postulates in its objects, not merely rationality^ but 
moral accountability as well. Of cruelty to animals it were 
idle to speak ; it is too base, too cowardly, and too infamous, 
to admit of suitable words to characterize it. 

Sec. II. — Malevolence toward Man. 

^ I. Nature and Conditions of Resentment toward Man. 
— ^Kesentment or malevolence toward men manifests itself, in 
practical life, in both the negative and positive forms ; i. e., 



250 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

as indifference, and as positive resentment or hostility. Its 
causes and conditions, just and unjust, good and bad, are al- 
most as endless and as various as are the possible relations 
of man to his fellows. They manifest themselves in all 
ranks, all circumstances, and all conditions of life, and under 
forms as various as these ever-varying conditions. 

% II. Moral Character of Eesentment toward Men. — Here, 
as elsewhere, we meet the problem of the negative and posi- 
tive forms of this affection, under allied but not identical 
conditions. Instinctive resentment, like all similar manifes- 
tations of our desires, may be dismissed with the single re- 
mark that we are never responsible for the origination of an 
instinctive impulse of any kind, but we are accountable for 
its continued existence, just so soon as reason has time to 
intervene, whether or not it does actually intervene, in any 
concrete instance. The legitimate law of human develop- 
ment demands that we should accustom ourselves to super- 
sede, i7istantaneously^ the instinctive action of all our facul- 
ties, by the corresponding voluntary acts morally appro- 
priate to the special occasion. It is only by so doing that 
we attain to the level of a true Christian manhood. 

1. Moral character of indifference. — This may be deci- 
sively declared, at once and without exception, to be evil and 
only evil continually. Human misconduct may warrant posi- 
tive resentment, but can never justify cold-hearted, selfish in- 
difference ; that has no legitimate status in the human soul 
under any possible conditions. 

2. Moral character of voluntary resentment. — This is 
amenable to the requirements of the moral law to the fullest 
extent, and is an admissible moral element of human charac- 
ter on condition : 

{a) That it is based upon adequate cause. 

{b) That it is conformed to correct principles ; and — 

(c) That it is controlled by an enlightened conscience. 
Subordinated to these conditions, it is possible for us to be 
angry and sin not. 

^ III. Final Cause of Malevolence. — The term malevo- 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 251 

lence is here used strictly as the generic expression of the 
more specific feelings included under the term resentment. 
Its final cause as a normal element in human nature may be 
presented under two heads, viz. : 

1. It is designed for the protection of self, or the person- 
ality, against sudden attack, or aggression ; and — 

2. It is designed as a permanent afiection, to insure the 
promotion of the ends of justice, by securing the final punish- 
ment of the criminal, although he may, in the outset, elude 
the deserved penalty of his crime. 

It is not obvious, under the actual conditions of human 
life, how either of these important ends could have been se- 
cured, had no element of resentment entered into the consti- 
tution of human nature. That it is liable to excessive or ab- 
normal development is simply incident to it as an attribute 
of humanity. 

Sec. III. — ^Malevolence toward God. 

A prioriy it would seem to be an incredible thing that 
any man can be so corrupt and so debased as to indulge in 
malevolent feelings toward God, yet the shameful fact exists. 
Resentment toward God can have neither reason nor apolo- 
gy, under any possible conditions ; and its inception in the 
soul of man, as well as its perpetuation, in every stage of its 
evolution, is a shame and a crime. N'or is there room for 
choice here between indifference and positive malevolence. 
If the one is impious, the other is sacrilegious and blasphe- 
mous. God has expressed His loathing of the indifferent 
soul in the words : " I would thou wert cold or hot ; so then 
because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will 
spue thee out of my mouth." 



252 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

CHAPTER II.— THE BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 

Preliminary Discussion. 

Analysis of the Beneyolent Affectiois'S. 

•[ I. Benevolence. — The terms benevolence and benevolent^ 
like malevolence and malevolent^ are here used in a generic 
and philosophic sense, radically different from their ordinary 
use in daily life. This is an evil, but in the present state of 
language seems to be wholly unavoidable, there being no 
other less ambiguous terms available to the uses of the 
psychologist. The term benevolence is here used as the 
simple expression of good will, good wishes, or, in a word, of 
love in its generic sense, as contradistinguished from indiffer- 
ence or resentment. The vitalizing element of the benevo- 
lent affections has already been declared to be " love " in its 
true specific sense. Its nature and conditions are familiar 
to consciousness, and have already been pointed out ; but an 
additional formal remark or two may not be inappropriate. 
Love as the basal principle of the benevolent affections is : 

1. A generic. term^ including many varying forms and de- 
grees of the affection ; and — 

2. Is modified and conditioned by the specific objects upon 
which it fastens. — There is no generic difference in the prin- 
ciple of love itself, intrinsically considered, however much its 
forms and degrees of intensity may vary in accommodating 
itself to its objects. 

^ II. Classification of the Objects of Benevolence. — Benevo- 
lence takes a wider range, legitimately, as a positive element 
of human character, than its contrary congener, malevolence ; 
since it does not necessarily presuppose, in its object, any 
sensibility to its effects, or consciousness of its existence. It 
may, therefore, attach to inanimate as well as anim,ate ob- 
jects ; to localities as well as to the beings inhabiting them. 
Its objects will, therefore, be considered under four generic 
heads, viz. : 



DIVISION SECOND—THE DESIRES. 253 

1. Love of Home and Country. 

2. Love of Animals. 

3. Love to Men ; and — 

4. Love to God. 

SECTioiq^ L — ^LovE OF Home and Coitntet. 

% L Analysis of the Affection. — ^The only form of love to 
inanimate objects which demands any special notice, is the 
love of home and country ; i. e., the attachment that men in- 
stinctively feel to the home of their childhood and to their 
native land. It seems to be a universal principle in the soul 
of man, and to be almost wholly independent of local condi- 
tions and circumstances; or, if affected by them, to be 
strongest where, antecedently, it might have been antici- 
pated that it would be weakest. For example, the inhab- 
itants of bleak and barren mountains are, usually, more 
strongly attached to their native land than those who dwell 
on the fertile plains below. So also the Greenlander and 
the Esquimaux manifest an instinctive love for their native 
lands that would do no discredit to more favored nations. 
This general fact may be accounted for, in part, by the in- 
fluence of habit, but is due chiefly, perhaps, to the fact that 
there is more individuality or intensity of life, if such expres- 
sions be admissible, in mountain and glacial life, than in 
countries whose natural scenery is less marked. To the dwell- 
er on the level fertile plain, one spot difiers but little from 
another, and a change of locality scarcely breaks the habits 
and associations of daily life. A mountain-peak, on the con- 
trary, has an individuality about it which attracts the soul, 
wins the affections, and makes it, as it were, a part of the life 
of the man. 

^ IL Final Cause of this Affection. — This is so obvious 
that it scarcely requires either statement or elucidation. A 
rambling, nomadic people are never a progressive people ; 
and true civilization and culture do not begin until men find 
settled homes, and a country around which the sweeter, 
purer affections of the heart may cluster. Of the intensity 



254 THE SENSIBILITIES : 

and power of this affection under the generic form of Patriot- 
ism, the records of history are full, and it were idle to quote 
illustrations here. 

Sec. II. — Be:n^evolence to Antmajls. 

^ I. Grounds of this Affection. — Love, as we have already- 
noted, is based either upon essential character or upon act- 
ual relations ; or, still more frequently, upon both. These 
principles are distinctly marked in the case of man's affection 
for animals, which is actually and legitimately based upon : 

1. The intrinsic character of the animal. — Thus men who 
feel an instinctive repulsion to animals, generally, sometimes 
single out some particular animal, as a horse or a dog, and 
become intensely attached to it, from the real or fancied dis- 
covery, in the favored animal, of some intrinsic excellence 
not discoverable in its species or in animals generally. 

2. The actual relations which the animal may sustain to 
us, — These relations are, in general : 

(pi) Those of nature ; i. e., those of a common depend- 
ence upon God, their Creator and ours ; and — 

(5) Of dependence. — The animal races have, by the decree 
of Jehovah, been subjugated to the will and the welfare of 
man ; and that very dependence constitutes a claim upon our 
benevolence. 

On the other hand, no man who truly honors God can 
despise or needlessly injure any creature of God ; and, on 
the other, no man who realizes the inferiority of the animal 
races to and their dependence upon the human race, can, con- 
sistently with his own sense of moral right and self-respect^ 
regard these dependent races other than with feelings of be- 
nevolence. Subsidiary to these, there are special cases of 
individual relationship, or rather association, between men 
and animals, generating strong mutual affection, which need 
only be named here to be comprehended. 

^ II. Relations and Limitations of this Affection. — The 
obligation of benevolence toward animals, as a practical 
fact, is limited only by man's own necessities. He may 



DIVISION SECOND—THE DESIRES. 255 

legitimately destroy ferocious or noxious animals whose exist- 
ence imperils his own life, health, or material interests, or he 
may take the life of, or otherwise use, any animal for his own 
profit, but in any case he is bound to cultivate benevolent 
feelings toward them. He may not, rightfully, make their 
sufferings, as such, minister to his pleasure, as in bull-baiting 
and cock-fighting, and he who does so brutalizes his own 
nature, and does himself even a greater wrong than he does 
the wretched animals which he tortures. Cruelty to animals 
is unnatural, and is repulsive alike to reason and the moral 
sense of man, but is, alas ! disgracefully common. 

Sec. III. — Benevolence to Man. 

This affection presents itself to us familiarly in conscious- 
ness, under two general forms, viz. : 1. Love of kindred ; 
and, 2. Love of humanity. 

^ L Love of Kindred. — 1. Its germinal principle. — Love 
of kindred, with its ties of blood, is so familiar to our con- 
sciousness and so vital an element in our daily lives, that we 
rarely stop to analyze it, or seek to evolve its vital element. 
The affection of the parent for his child is so intense, so per- 
sistent, and so essential to the interests, not to say to the ex- 
istence, of society, that we accept the fact as a thing of 
course, and do not pause to investigate its philosophy ; we 
say it is natural, and are satisfied. We ignore the fact that 
ties of blood, as bonds of attachment between parent and 
offspring, have no such persistence among the animal races, 
but that, on the contrary, all recognition and affection be- 
tween them ceases with the maturity of the offspring, and 
they are thenceforth strangers to each other. In the human 
race, however, a contrary law prevails, and parental and 
filial love usually continue during the lives of the parties. 
There is, moreover, with men, an extension of the principle, 
as manifested in love of kindred, not only in the direct, but 
in the collateral, lines of consanguinity. In reference to this 
peculiarity, but little more can be said than that we are so 
constituted, doubtless for wise and beneficent purposes. 



256 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

The tie recognized is specifically that of blood, and its 
strength is proportioned to its nearness and directness. 

2. Its special forms. — These correspond to the actual 
sexual relations of man, with its secondary or derivative 
filiations, and include : 

(a) Conjugal love. — This is the basal element at once 
of the marriage relation and of the love of kindred. It is 
obviously an afiection sui generis, involving principles pecu- 
liar to itself. Originating as it does, spontaneously, in the 
souls of the man and woman who, perhaps until the hour, 
were entire strangers to each other, it unites them in a bond 
stronger than life itseK, and justifies by its intimacy, inten- 
sity, and endurance, the words of Adam concerning Eve : 
"This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." 
Here there is no tie of blood, or natural kindred, and yet no 
tie of blood is stronger than this, or more essential to human 
development and happiness. 

It should be remarked in this connection that the essen- 
tial characteristics of conjugal love, viz., its intensity and ex- 
clusiveness, indicate strongly that monogamy is the normal 
relation between the sexes, and tends to the purity and happi- 
ness of the race. No man is content to share the love of his 
wife with another, and no true woman feels that less than 
the exclusive love of her husband is an adequate return for 
her own. Of the origin of this peculiar affection, philoso- . 
phize as we may, we come at last to this conclusion — we are 
so constituted; and conjugal love is an original impulse of 
the human soul. 

(5) Parental and filial love. — In this we have the com- 
plementary nexus, or bond, of the resultant parental and filial 
relation, so that in a modified sense the latter may be said to 
be itself a resultant of conjugal love. Parental and filial 
love differ from each other, necessarily, both in their natures 
and their relations. The former is obviously the more in- 
tense, persistent, and enduring, and is just as obviously 
stronger in the mother than the father. These differences 
accommodate themselves precisely to the necessities and the 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 257 

moral relations of mankind, which require just such a special 
guarantee for the perpetuity of the race, by providing for 
the infant in its helplessness. These peculiarities may per- 
haps be accounted for, by the actual relations subsisting be- 
tween parents and children, on the supposition of the natural 
equality of their affection for each other; but in point of 
fact the difference is primitive, though it may be, and often 
is, intensified by circumstances. The final cause of these 
affections is unquestionably, ^rs^, the conservation, and, sec- 
ond, the happiness, of the human race. 

(c) The love of consanguinity. — This may also, perhaps, 
be regarded as an original principle, grounding itself in the 
two forms of affection previously noted ; but it is much less 
powerful than either, and is amenable in a greater degree to 
the influence of education and the power of habit. Among 
some races, as the Scotch Highlanders and the Bedouin 
Arabs, it is recognized as a real bond so long as the relation- 
ship is discoverable, however remote. Among nations gen- 
erally it is scarcely recognized beyond the nearest collaterals. 
In the primitive forms of society, it was the organizing link 
of the patriarchy, and the germinal bond of the tribe or na- 
tion. In modern times, its influence as an element of social 
organization is much less marked and less important. Yet 
even now it is an element of social and moral power, as well 
as of human happiness. 

^ II. Love of Humanity. — Beyond the utmost limit of 
cognizable consanguinity, we still recognize a natural love in 
the human soul for man as man. This may be, and often is, 
smothered by selfishness, obscured by passion, or obliterated 
practically by sin, but it is none the less a normal primi- 
tive affection of the soul, complementary to, rather than 
based upon, or evolved from, the natural bonds of unity of 
nature, unity of relations to God, and unity of interest, 
which bind man to his fellow-man. The fact, however, is 
recognized that these relations, just in proportion as they are 
realized in consciousness and intelligently comprehended, re- 
act upon and strengthen the corresponding affection of man 



258 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

to man, as men ; and it is one of the most pleasing develop- 
ments of modern times, that the brotherhood of humanity is 
not only recognized as an intellectual perception, but as a 
vital faith and a living principle of action. 

Sec. IV. — Love to God. 

^ I. IXature of the Principle. — Love, as an affection of the 
human soul, may be diverse in its conditions, its degrees of 
intensity, its persistence, and its objects ; but it is essentially 
one and indivisible in its essence. As directed toward God, 
it approximates more or less perfectly toward its normal 
ideal form and its perfect development, since in- God every 
element of love, whether it be conceived as based upon m- 
trinsic excellence^ or upon relations the most interesting and 
beneficent in their character and ends, culminates in an abso- 
lute ideal perfection. Love to God must be considered 
under two distinct points of view, which determine its char- 
acter, viz. : 

1. As a generic form, or principle. — Love to God differs 
from any other form of the affection in its breadth or neces- 
sary extension. Love of home, of a favorite animal, of a 
wife, of children, etc., ^re of an individual or personal charac- 
ter, and involve to a greater or less degree the idea of ap- 
propriating the loved object, and each form of the affection 
noted tends in a greater or less degree to become exclusive 
and to shut out all other affections. Love to God, on the 
contrary, while it absorbs the affection into itself with won- 
derful power, at the same time opens and expands the soul, 
and prepares it to embrace with unwonted intensity and 
power every other legitimate object of affection. The phi- 
losophy of this generic fact seems to be this : love, as direct- 
ed toward God, grasps every possible element of truth, beau- 
ty, and goodness, i. e., every element that may generate, in- 
tensify, or sustain, the passion of love. But grasping these 
in their absolute perfections, as individualized in God, the soul 
is at once quickened and intensified, and its love for truth, 
beauty, and goodness, so stimulated that it fastens upon them, 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 259 

wherever found, as its richest treasures. Love to God, there- 
fore, necessitates and strengthens every lower normal affection. 
It should, perhaps, be added that this is a peculiar charac- 
teristic of love to God, which it shares with no other affec- 
tion of the soul. 

2. As an exclusive principle. — Paradoxical as the group- 
ing may seem to be, love to God is at once ger^eric and ex- 
elusive. For while, on the one hand, it includes, generates, 
and necessitates, all minor forms of normal affections, it will, 
on the other hand, brook no equality or rivalry with any. In 
this sense, it challenges for itself the right to dwell alone in 
the innermost sanctuary of the soul. The divine expression 
of these apparently paradoxical attributes of love to God, is 
found in Christ's authoritative exposition of the divine law, 
viz., " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all 
thy strength ; " and " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self ." In which we have exhibited at once the generic and 
the exclusive characters of the affection. 

^ II. Basis or Grounds of Love to God. — The general doc- 
trines or conditions of love, as an affection of the soul, have 
already been discretely enunciated, namely, intrinsic excel- 
lence and actual relations. It only remains to note their ap- 
plication as elements of -love to God ; and here, it would 
seem, that words were idle and argument impertinent. 
Every conceivable rational element and condition of love, in 
its purest and most exalted type, centres, in all its fulness 
and completeness in the character of God, and in His rela- 
tions to man. He is, on the one hand, the ideal of truth, of 
beauty, and of goodness — ^in a word, of all perfection ; and, 
on the other. He is the fountain of being, of life, of happiness, 
and of hope, to man. Every conceivable element of intrinsic 
excellence converges in the infinite perfection of His charac- 
ter ; and every tie of admiration and of gratitude appeals to 
the deepest fountains of affection in the human soul, and 
tends to draw us to God, our Creator, Preserver, and Re- 
deemer, in a bond of love, sweeter than life and stronger 
than death. 



260 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

^ III. Reflex Influences of Love to God.— 1. Upon mail's 
intellectual life. — The concept of truth stimulates the intel- 
lect to seek after it as an object of desire, the love of truth 
energizes the soul and intensifies its efibrts to grasp the cov- 
eted prize ; but, when truth is individualized and becomes a 
living personality^ the pure, earnest, truth-loving soul fas- 
tens its affections upon that personality, i. e., upon God, with 
a power that reacts upon the whole intellectual life of the 
man, intensifying the perceptions, elevating the conceptions, 
and strengthening the judgment — in a word, lifting the 
thoughts, above the clouds and above the shadows, into the 
glorious sunshine of divine truth. 

2. Upon the moral life of man. — ^It is, however, only 
when we turn and consider love to God, in its influence upon 
the moral nature of man, that we attain to an approximately 
adequate conception of its vitalizing and energizing power. 
In the struggle between the animal and rational natures of 
man, between his physical appetites and moral impulses^ the 
love of God is an auxiliary so potent, when thrown into the 
scale on the side of the rational and spiritual natures, as to 
insure victory in the otherwise doubtful contest. It is only in 
the wisdom and strength of a pure, exclusive, all-absorbing 
love to God, that the intellect of man achieves its loftiest ef- 
forts, that his purest and sweetest emotions are awakened, 
that the nobler, holier desires of his soul are aroused, and 
that his moral impulses are stimulated to assert and vindicate 
fully their sovereignty, consuming the dross of selfishness, ex- 
pelling all base desire, and attaining to perfect rest in a vital 
union with God. 

^ IV. Is Love to God an Original Principle. — 1. Testi- 
mony of consciousness. — Our inquiries here touch upon the 
point of contact between psychology and revelation, and call 
in, almost unavoidably, elements that belong rather to re- 
vealed religion than to positive science ; yet, in the light of 
preceding discussions, the inquiry raised here cannot be le- 
gitimately evaded. 

Our analysis of the intellectual processes revealed the 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 261 

fact, decisively, that the concept of God is a necessary result- 
ant of the laws of thought, and is one of the primitive faiths 
of humanity ; that in this concept our loftiest ideals of truth, 
beauty, and goodness, meet and are individualized ; that in 
the sphere of the emotions it alone is capable of awakening 
their intensest life ; that it reacts powerfully upon our desires 
and stimulates conscience to its most energetic action, and 
infuses into its monitions a vital force which otherwise they 
could not possess. All this and more is true, and yet the 
problem. Do men naturally and intuitively love God ? re- 
mains unanswered. All the elements seemingly necessary to 
the generation and evolution of genuine love seem to be pres- 
ent. The character and relations of God to man alike chal- 
lenge love, but there is no decisive evidence^ either in personal 
consciousness or experience, that men do naturally love God 
as they love home and country, the animals around them, 
their kindred, or their fellow-men. All these minor affec- 
tions spring up normally in the human soul, and manifest 
themselves, with more or less of intensity and power, univer- 
sally among men ; but he were a venturesome, not to say a 
reckless psychologist, who would risk the assertion that love 
to God is at least as universal among men as the concept of 
God. It is, alas ! not so ; untold myriads of men know God 
only to hate Him. Every element, seemingly essential to the 
evolution of love in the human soul, is present ; and yet men 
naturally do not love God. Such is decisively the testimony 
alike of reason, of consciousness, and of experience. 

2. Testimony of the Holy Scriptures. — In passing, tran- 
siently, as we now do, from the sphere of science to that of 
revelation, we discover how exactly the latter coincides in its 
supernatural teachings with the former, and thus meets, in 
its Divine fulness, the actual necessities of man. In the first 
place, revelation explicitly declares it to be man's supreme 
duty to love God ; in the second place, it charges with equal 
directness that, in fact, men do not love God, although every 
claim that could challenge their rational love has appealed 
to them again and again; in the third place, it postulates 



262 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

the absolute necessity of Divine help, as the only possible 
condition on which men can be brought to love God, but this 
help it tenders freely to all vi^ho will in any wise accept it. 
Revelation and science are thus in accord with each other ; 
and when men point, as they sometimes do, to a beautiful in- 
stance, here and there, of some lovely child growing up, 
under the wise care of God-fearing parents, in the knowledge 
and love of God, revelation responds at once to the precious 
psychological phenomenon with the still more precious prom- 
ise : " I will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, 
to love the Lord thy God." Men ought^ hut do not^ natural- 
ly love God, albeit God has not only given them a loving 
nature, but also abundant positive cause to love Him above 
all things else. 

DIVISION II.— THE MOEAL IMPULSE, OE CONSCIENCE. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

^ I. The Intellectual Basis of our Moral Impulses, or Con- 
science. — Our sensitive nature, as has been already noted, is 
conditioned upon our intellectual, and cannot operate apart 
from it ; and this is preeminently true of the moral impulse, 
or conscience, which is wholly rational in its character and 
conditions, and predicates in its every act a prior intellec- 
tion or perception of the right. This perception appears 
under two distinct forms, viz. : 

1. An intuition of the right as an a priori concept of the 
soul, as well as a necessary alternative attribute of human 
action. 

2. An intuitive judgment, "I ought to do right," denomi- 
nated the categorical imperative of conscience. This pecu- 
liar judgment carries with it a conviction as clear, as positive, 
and as self-evident, as that which results from the axioms of 
mathematics. 

In this primitive concept, with its corresponding judg- 
ment, we discover the true intellectual basis of conscience 
as the ultimate appellate motive principle of the soul. It 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 263 

should be remarked, in passing, and will appear more clearly 
in the sequel, that every specific act of conscience implies, in 
addition to these general intellectual elements, a concrete 
judgment that this or that proposed specific act is right or 
vjrong^ as the case may be, and this concrete judgment is 
purely an intellection based upon the ordinary processes of 
the reason, evolved under precisely the same conditions of 
truth or falsity as any other judgment whatsoever, and is 
hedged around with no peculiar guarantees against error, in 
view of the fact that an act of conscience must be based 
upon it. It is precisely here that the element of fallibility 
manifests itself in conscience conceived as a moral guide. 

•|f II. The Emotional Element in Conscience. — Conscience 
as a complex faculty involves an emotional element of an in- 
tensity, rank, and power, corresponding to its intellectual 
basis. This is found in our familiar emotions of moral ap- 
proval and disapproval, which we found to be at the summit 
of the hierarchy of the emotions, whose peculiar double 
movement was there noted, viz. : 

1. Their abstract movement, in which they are spontane- 
ously evolved in view of abstract action, considered as right 
or wrong, independently of the personality ; and — 

2. Their personal movement, in view of the voluntary 
right or wrong actions of the personality. In this case they 
are evolved under the higher and intenser forms of remorse 
and shame for wrong actions; and of emotions of purest, 
sweetest self-approval in view of right actions. 

^\ III. The Motive Power of Conscience. — Did conscience 
rest in the moral judgment, however decisive, that " I ought 
to do this because it is right," and in the correlated moral emo- 
tions of approval and disapproval, however sweet and intense, 
it would be powerless to struggle against desire and passion, 
and to limit their influence upon the will. Neither the intel- 
lect nor the emotions have any direct or immediate influence 
in the evolution of volitions, or in producing voluntary ac- 
tion. Conscience, therefore, predicates, as a condition prece- 
dent of its existence, a place at the summit of the hierarchy 



264 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

of the desires ; i. e., of the motive powers of the soul. It 
challenges in fact for itself, in virtue of its transcendent im- 
portance, the right to be the supreme motive power of the 
life. 

Conscience, as a faculty of the soiil, attains to its true rank 
and position only in this perfect synthesis of elements, which 
brings it in complete sympathy and contact with every de- 
partment of soul-life, and thus enables it authoritatively to 
propound its mandate, " Do right, because it is right." 

Sectioi^ I. — N'atuee of the Moral Impulse 

^ I. It is not a Simple Judgment. — The question here is not 
of clearness of intellectual conviction ; that may be practical- 
ly absolute, and yet conscience may be powerless. The judg- 
ment " I ought to do this," or " I ought not to do that," un- 
questionably underlies and conditions every true moral im- 
pulse, or act of conscience, but it does not constitute that im- 
pulse, or act. No simple judgment, as such, can sustain the 
relation of a motive to the will, save on the condition that it 
generates a correspondmg desire or impulse of the sensitive 
nature. 

^ n. It is not a Simple Emotion. — The emotions, like in- 
tellections, possess no direct motive power, though they may, 
and do, generate desires and impulses corresponding in na- 
ture to their own, which do sustain to the will the relation 
of motives to volition. 

% in. True Nature of the Moral Impulse. — This must be 
adjudged to be, generically, of the nature of desire, that is, it 
is of the nature of a motive power, in its relations to volition. 
It has, moreover, the characteristic persistence of a true de- 
sire, and will not rest or cease till its demands are satisfied 
by appropriate moral action. Or, more discretely : 

1. It resembles the true desires in two particulars, viz. : 

[a) In that, like them, it acts upon the will in the rela- 
tions of a motive to volition ; and — 

(h) That, like them, it is persistent until its demands are 
satisfied. 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 265 

2. It is unlike the desires, in the fact that it perpetuates 
itself, long after the decisive moment when gratification is 
attained, or forever becomes impossible by the introduction 
of alternative and persistent emotions : 

(a) Of moral self -approval, consequent upon right ac- 
tion; and — 

(5) Of moral disapproval, i. e., of remorse, consequent 
upon wrong action. The pleasures of gratified desire are 
transitory, and serve rather to disquiet, by generating a fresh 
desire for the repetition of the pleasure, than permanently 
to satisfy the soul ; but the smiles of an approving conscience 
bring a peace and joy that are enduring. For this peculiar- 
ity no other reason can be assigned than that God has so 
constituted us. 

Sec. II. — Chaeacteristics of ouk Moral Impulses. 

^I. They are simple and primitive. — In this respect 
they respond to the essential characteristics of all our origi- 
nal faculties or powers. The moment a mental process is 
found to be resolvable into more simple elements, or factors, 
the mind seizes upon those new factors, and declares them to 
be the proper mental faculties, of which the former are but 
subsidiary complex forms. Psychologists, in their unwea- 
ried efforts to reduce the complex elements and processes of 
thought, feeling, and volition, to unity, are prone to forget 
the fact that science, in its very nature, postulates and deals 
with second causes 07ily, and must, therefore, rest in them ; 
and that any attempt to pass beyond them, in its own proper 
plane, can only result in confusion, and not in knowledge. 

^ II. They are universal. — Ko family, race, or nation, is 
known to-day, or finds a place in the records of history, in 
whom the moral impulse is, or was, wholly wanting. Men 
may, and do differ, toto coelo, as to what is right or wrong, 
in this or that concrete instance, but they never differ in ref- 
erence to the more general problem that right and wrong 
are real attributes of human action. This fact is attested 
alike by consciousness, by language, and by history. 
12 



266 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

T III. They are authoritative. — In this respect con- 
science is a faculty, sui generis^ and wholly peculiar. A de- 
sire may be intense, exacting, urgent ; but a moral impulse 
is rational, imperative, authoritative. It thus, instinctively, 
or intuitively, vindicates its right to the throne, the crown, 
and the sceptre, in the hierarchy of the sensibilities. 

Sec. III. — Are the Decisions of Conscience final? 

*f I. They are not infallible. — This is a simple corollary 
from the necessary laws or conditions of their evolution, 
whether they are considered with reference to their intel- 
lectual or their sensitive elements or conditions. In the first 
case, it is obvious that the intellect of man does not and can- 
not attain to absolute truth, and consequently does not and 
cannot render an infallible decision in reference to any case 
of conscience submitted to its decision ; for neither its pro- 
cesses nor its data are absolute. The reason of man, in this 
life, does not and cannot, therefore, possess any infallible 
guide to truth. The fact is not ignored here, that it does 
possess a divine revelation, but it possesses it only in earthen 
vessels, i. e., under the variable forms of human (not divine) 
language, as conceived and comprehended by human facul- 
ties, and hence (however perfect the revelation) the liability 
to error and mistake remains in the application of this per- 
fect law to the concrete cases of conscience that arise in 
daily life. !N"or would the infallibility of priests, pope, or 
Church, aid us here, were we assured of its reality, since it 
could not remove this subjective liability to error. In the 
second case, it is obvious that, if absolute intellectual verity 
could be postulated in any concrete instance, there could still 
be no sufficient guarantee that the sensitive nature would re- 
spond by emotions and moral impulses exactly conformed in 
all respects to the supposed infallible moral judgment. The 
whole paragraph may, in fact, be summed up in three dis- 
crete remarks, viz. : 

1. Errors of conscience are, or may be, conditioned upon 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 26Y 

errors of judgment, or reasoning, even when the latter are 
conditioned upon correct data or premises. 

2. Errors of conscience may be conditioned upon false or 
imperfect data, where the processes of reasoning are logi- 
cally correct ; and — 

3. Errors of conscience may be conditioned upon a failure 
of the moral emotion, or moral impulse, even when the intel- 
lectual elements are correct. 

It. is evident that the last-named form must be character- 
ized as nioral imbecility, when there is simple failure of the 
moral impulse ; and as moral insanity, if the case be con- 
ceived possible that a man's conscience should impel him to 
do what he himself believed and knew to be wrong and sin- 
ful ; but it may safely be doubted whether such a case ever 
actually existed. Practically, depravity of conscience in- 
volves : first, errors in the processes of judgment ; second, 
false data of judgment ; or, third, imbecility of moral im- 
pulse ; or it may include any of these singly, or may combine 
them all. 

^ II. The Decisions of Conscience are final. — The reason 
of this conclusion is obvious, in the light of the preceding 
discussions. Conscience involves and includes the highest 
elements of both the intellectual and sensitive natures of 
man ; and, failing these, there is nothing to which man can 
appeal as a moral guide and pilot over the ocean of life. 
Will it be said in reply, that, since conscience is fallible, 
man should take refuge in authority, the answer is de- 
cisive and final: first, that this fallible conscience must be 
absolutely trusted to select the proposed infallible guide ; 
and, second, granting the fitness of the selection, the same 
fallible conscience must still be trusted to receive, compre- 
hend, and enforce, the teachings of this infallible authority 
— so that in the end we come back to conscience as a final au- 
thority in morals. But this problem is so radical in its rela- 
tions to humanity that it demands more extended discussion, 
and especially does it require a discrete investigation of the 
actual authorities which have been proposed to man as a sub- 
stitute for conscience, namely : 



268 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

1. The authority of the state. — This, it is obvious, is, 
after all, only the resultant or sum-total of the consciences of 
the individuals composing the state ; or, more correctly, of 
the ruling minds in the state. We thus come back, at once, 
to the individual conscience as the ultimate appeal. But no 
man at the present day seriously proposes to make the state, 
in any proper sense, a universal conscience for all its citizens ; 
this hypothesis may, therefore, be discounted without further 
notice. 

2. The authority of the Church. — This is the theory of 
Rome, which postulates infallibility in the Church, without 
having been able as yet to determine satisfactorily where 
this infallibility rests; whether in the pope, in a general 
council, or in the unity of pope and council. In the outset 
the fact should be noted that this uncertainty, however con- 
venient as a shield against attack, is after all fatal to the 
dogma, since infallibility is worthless so long as it is intangi- 
ble and undefined. How, for example, can it help ine, in a 
case of conscience, to know that there is an infallible guide 
somewhere, so long as I do not know, and cannnot discover, 
who he is, where he is, nor how to find him ? I know that 
much now, for I know that God is absolutely infallible, but 
I find, like Job, that I cannot come at pleasure to His throne. 
Although the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican has decreed 
the infallibility of the pope (which they could only do on 
the hypothesis, which nobody believes, that both pope and 
council were separately infallible), we have practically gained 
nothing, for equally infallible popes and councils have, in the 
past, again and again, condemned and anathematized each 
other ; and the question still remains insoluble, whether the 
pope is infallible simply as a pope, or as a man, or as both 
pope and man. Who, then, shall tell us, in any given case, 
whether the pope or the man speaks or acts, so that we may 
know whether the given act or decision is infallible which is 
offered in solution of our case of conscience ? But if it could, 
in order to avoid this difficulty, be conceded, as clearly it 
eannot, even on the Roman hypothesis, that both pope and 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 269 

man are infallible, still our poor consciences are not helped, 
for nobody pretends that each individual Roman bishop, or 
priest, is an infallible expounder of the infallible decree of 
the infallible pope, and so we are forced back at last upon 
our own poor fallible consciences, and must trust them, in 
the end, to decide upon the application of the infallible dog- 
mas of pope and council to the special cases of conscience upon 
which our personal salvation must at last depend. Practi- 
cally, an infallible pope, enthroned in the Vatican, is less 
accessible to the masses of mankind than Jehovah enthroned 
as King of kings, in the third heavens; for He, at least in 
Spirit, is present everywhere. The figment of an infallible 
church, could its reality be proved, could not be substituted 
in the soul of man for the paramount authority of con- 
science. 

3. Tlie authority of revelation. — A divinely inspired and 
satisfactorily authenticated revelation is the only remaining 
alternative. But this, inestimable and priceless as is the 
boon, does not and cannot supersede the authority of con- 
science in the soul, for the obvious reason that, like the state 
and like the Church, it must itself at last appeal to conscience, 
first^ to accept^ and^ secondly^ to enforce its authority. ]^o 
one needs to be told, at the present day, how vain are all 
civil or criminal laws of the state which the moral sense of 
community does not sustain ; nor yet how powerless are the 
decisions of pope and council when the consciences of men 
revolt against them, as in the days of Luther and Calvin. 
Rationally, from this ultimate right of private judgment 
there is no appeal and no escape. The sincere and devout 
Catholic is such only in virtue of the standing decision of his 
own conscience, that the authority of the Church is legiti- 
mately paramount. Take that consent of conscience away, 
and his Catholicism is an empty name. 

The fact is, no truth whatever can be stated in human 
language so briefly, so decisively, so unequivocally, that the 
first three men to whom it is proposed shall be able to com- 
prehend it, in all respects y exactly alike ; so that an infallible 



270 THE SENSIBILITIES: 

divine revelation is just as powerless to produce absolute 
uniformity of faitli and conscience as an infallible church. 
It does not follow, however, that it is just as mythical or as 
valueless. Its value as furnishing reliable data to reason and 
conscience is priceless, but none the less conscience is, and 
must ever be, the ultimate court of appeal in the sphere of 
the human personality. 

^ ni. Moral Responsibility for Conscientious Action. — Fi- 
nally, but a single problem remains. Is a man morally re- 
sponsible for a wrong action wrought in obedience to the 
behests of conscience ? It is obvious that, in the discussion 
of this question, we must pass from the sphere of psycholo- 
gy to that of ethics ; yet the question is so intimately related 
to our legitimate line of thought, that it seems to be neces- 
sary to recognize it here. The principles involved are few 
and simple, and easily comprehended. Every legitimate act 
of conscience postulates at least three related conditions, 
viz. : 

1. Unbiassed inclinations. — Or, in other words, a sincere 
desire both to know and to do the right. He who approaches 
the examination of a case of conscience with a biassed mind, 
i. e., with strong prepossessions for, or against, a certain 
course of action, is but little likely to arrive at correct con- 
clusions concerning it. If we throw the sword of Brennus 
into the scale, we shall not mete out exact justice in the 
court of conscience. 

2. Conscientious use of all the light possible. — He who 
shuts his eyes to the light has no right to plead the darkness 
in bar of judgment against his errors and mistakes. The 
question is not, how much light the man has actually used, 
in any given instance, but how much was fairly within his 
reach, if he had conscientiously sought after it. Ko man 
can honestly decide on worse evidence than is possible to him 
in the given case. 

3. Logical precision of judgment. — Candor and intelli- 
gence alone cannot insure correct results if logical precision 
in the evolution of our complex processes of reasoning be 



DIVISION SECOND— THE DESIRES. 271 

wanting. Man ordinarily is justly held to be accountable 
for his logic, or want of logic, and may not plead his own 
careless use of his reasoning powers as an apology for his 
errors of conscience ; but where an individual, fully recog- 
nizing his own moral responsibility, approaches a case of 
conscience in the spirit of the three conditions noted above, 
and yet errs at last in his decision, and, in obedience to his 
conscience, performs a wrong act, he must stand acquitted 
of all wrong or sin alike at the bar of conscience and of Je- 
hovah. 



BOOK III— THE WILL. 



PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS. 
Section I. — ISTatuee of the Problem. 

In order to any intelligent comprehension of the prob- 
lems of the will, upon the investigation of which we must 
now enter, it is indispensable that we. thoroughly compre- 
hend the results already reached in the process of the evolu- 
tion of mind, and that we comprehend adequately at once 
the difficulty and importance of the subject. 

^ I. Analysis of Results reached. — Our investigations 
thus far into the phenomena of our complex human personali- 
ties have revealed two general classes of facts, diifering de- 
cisively from each other, and have indicated or foreshadowed 
a third, which now remains to be noted. 

1. The intellect and the phenomena of thought. — These 
have already been discretely investigated ; and their three 
general movements, or processes, with their resulting t^yo- 
ducts, viz., percepts, co/icep^5, and beliefs, hdiVQ. been clearly 
evolved in consciousness, and correlated to each other. 

2. The sensibilities and the phenomena of feeling. — Here 
our investigations revealed the two general classes of emo- 
tions and desires : the first representing simple states or 
afiections of the complex physical and psychical organism ; 
the second, its appetencies, in virtue of which they react 
upon the will, as will be seen in the sequel, in the relation of 
motives to volitions. 

3. Will and the phenomena of volitio7i. — These were dis- 



NATUEE OF THE PROBLEM. 273 

tinctly indicated in our preliminary analysis, and now re- 
main for discrete examination, as the only remaining element 
in the trinal evolution of the human soul. 

As compared with each other in general terms, intellect 
may be said to evolve the problems of life ; the sensibilities, 
to furnish the motive power to action ; and the will, as the 
autocratic sovereign, to determine decisively and authorita- 
tively the action to be taken in view of the problems pro- 
posed. As thus conceived, the will is obviously identified 
strictly with self^ or the true ego^ and made the central ele- 
ment in the sphere of consciousness, a conclusion whose 
necessity and propriety will become increasingly evident as 
our investigation proceeds. 

% II. Importance of this Department of Mind. — It is al- 
most superfluous, in view of these facts, and others which will 
present themselves obtrusively to the thoughtful student, to 
pause to argue the necessity of an intelligent comprehension 
of volition and its laws, as the central and crowning element 
of soul-life. Apart from this, the phenomena of moral re- 
sponsibility and accountability, the most important elements 
or attributes of humanity, are unsolved and insoluble mys- 
teries. No fact is better ascertained in consciousness than 
that, apart from volition, there is, and can be, neither moral 
responsibility nor accountability. 

% III. Difficulty of the Investigation. — This is, as usual, 
in direct proportion to the intrinsic importance of the sub- 
ject, in its relations to human evolution. Its special diffi- 
culties appear to result from two general considerations, 
viz. : 

1. The evolution of its processes and products is, from 
their nature, less obvious than those of the intellect or sen- 
sibilities. The soul, in the act of volition, is so thoroughly 
occupied and engrossed with the immediate problem that is 
pressing upon it for decision, that it is less capable of react- 
ing upon and determining, in the light of personal conscious- 
ness, its own actual processes than in any other form of men- 
tal activity whatever. In addition to this, the fact must be 



274 THE WILL: 

distinctly noted that the processes themselves are intrinsically 
more obscure than any others known to ns in the evolution 
of soul-life, lying as they do in the very inner sanctuary of 
the soul. 

2. The phenomena of volition are wholly sui generis and 
peculiar^ having nothing analogous to them, even remotely, 
in the sphere of human experience. The necessary conse- 
quence is, that all attempts to illustrate them by analogies 
drawn from man's varied experience, not only fail to cast 
any light whatever upon their acknowledged mysteries, but 
actually tend to mislead, by introducing factitious elements 
into the problem, which vitiate the results reached, necessari- 
ly and hopelessly. This is especially true of all analogies 
drawn from the physical world, such as Edwards's famous bal- 
ances, introduced in order to illustrate the power of motives 
over choice. He who would investigate the phenomena and 
laws of volition, intelligently, must fi?: in his thought, firmly 
and decisively, this fundamental principle, that volition is a 
phenomenon of the soul, sui generis, unlike any thing else 
known to man, either in consciousness, or in the external 
world, and that it must he studied in itself, or not at all. 

Sec. II. — ^I^Iethods of Investigation^. 

^ I. Consciousness the Sole Instrument of Investigation. — 
It is obvious, in view of the facts already stated, that con- 
sciousness is the sole instrumentality through which it is 
possible, intelligently, to investigate the real phenomena of 
volition, since it alone can penetrate the inner sanctuaries 
of the soul, and bring into view the play of the hidden 
springs of action that dwell there. Here analogies drawn 
from the material world, not only utterly fail to cast any 
light upon the problems we seek to solve, but actually mis- 
lead us ; for, in no one of its processes or movements is the 
soul so far removed from mechanism and its laws as it is in 
the phenomena of volition. The veriest materialist would 
be ashamed to attempt to illustrate the evolution of thought 
proper by the movements of a self-acting steam-engine ; but, 



METHODS OF INVESTIGATION. 275 

most strangely, otherwise consistent spiritualists have fallen 
into the strange blunder of attempting to solve the mys- 
teries of volition by purely material analogies. 

A priori theories here, however beautiful and clear, are 
utterly valueless. It is easy for us to theorize what the rela- 
tions of motives to volition, on the one hand, and of volition 
to action, on the other, ought to he ; but, after all, that is not 
what the psychologist either needs or desires to know. The 
question with him simply is. What are the actual phenome- 
na and laws of volition as we Jcnow them f 

Finally : with all due respect for theologians, on the one 
hand, and real reverence for the Holy Scriptures, on the other, 
the psychologist can accept neither the a priori theories of 
the former, nor yet their dogmatic declarations of the testi- 
mony of the latter, as decisive in reference to any element 
involved in the evolution of the phenomena of volition. So 
long, moreover, as he confines himself to his legitimate 
sphere of action, and sincerely seeks truth for its own sake, 
there is little danger of his coming in collision with God's 
Word, however frequently he may collide with theological 
dogmas professedly evolved from that Word. 

The conclusion, therefore, is decisive, that consciousness 
is our only authoritative guide in the investigation of the 
phenomena and laws of volition, and that its well-ascertained 
facts and necessary inferences must he accepted as final, how- 
ever m>uch they may collide with a priori theories or theologi- 
cal dogmas. 

^ II. Evolution of the Generic Phenomena of Will. — Here 
a somewhat important distinction between the immediate 
and m,ediate, or the primary and secondary, phenomena of 
this department of mind emerges; a distinction resulting 
from a fact already indicated, that in the will we attain to 
the central element of soul-life, and the true representative 
of self, or the conscious personality : 

1. As the primary product or phenomenon of the will, 
we recognize volition, with its concomitants, both antecedent 
and subsequent. 



276 THE WILL: 

2. As the secondary 2^^^^^^^^ oi^ phenomenon of the icill, 
we recognize moral agency^ with its concomitants, moral re- 
sponsibility and moral accountability. 

It is not, of course, intended here to exclude the intelli- 
gence and sensibilities of man from their proper relations to 
moral agency ; nor can it be done, in face of the decisive 
relations predicated between the three departments of mind ; 
but it is intended to assert that moral responsibility and ac- 
countability are only predicable of true voluntary action; 
and hence that they only emerge into consciousness as deriv- 
ative phenomena of volition. They are, of course, subor- 
dinated to volition only in the sense that they postulate it as 
a condition precedent of their own existence. 

The inherent relations between volition and moral agen- 
cy noted here, will appear more clearly and decisively in the 
sequel, and are, in fact, of fundamental importance in their 
practical relations to psychology. 

^ III. General Plan of Discussion. — This has been already 
indicated in the declaration that consciousness is the only le- 
gitimate witness available to us in the study of the phenom- 
ena and laws of volition. We shall, therefore, endeavor to 
ascertain the actual facts of consciousness bearing upon the 
phenomena of volition, and seek in their scientific coordina- 
tion and correlation for the laws governing their normal evo- 
lution, seeking at the same time, as far as possible, to ver- 
ify our conclusions by the testimony of language, of history, 
and of observation, which are but the crystallized products 
of human consciousness. 



CHAPTER I.— FUNDAMEITTAL CON0EPTIO:S'S : NECESSI- 
TY, LIBERTY, Al^D MORAL AGENCY. 

Section I. — General Conceptions. 

^ I. Evolution of Concepts. — There are various generic 
concepts which emerge in consciousness whenever the soul 
reflects upon its own voluntary actions in their relations 
to not-self, or the universe, which must be discretely noted 



FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 277 

here, as prime factors in any intelligent discussion of the 
phenomena of volition, viz. : 

1. Operation and action. — One of the most obtrusive 
ideas of our daily practical life is the distinction between 
operation and action^; i. e., between a mechanical movement, 
as of a steam-engine, and the action of a man. This dis- 
crimination of the one from the other is necessary and uni- 
versal, and is the expression of the consciousness of the hu- 
man soul that there is, in the manifestations of its voluntary 
activity, an element or elements which require it to be dis- 
criminated absolutely from mere mechanical operations of 
every kind. 

2. Causation and volition. — A second universal distinc- 
tion, drawn by the popular consciousness, separates between 
causation proper and volition proper. The boy expresses it 
wholly and completely in his answer to two familiar classes 
of questions ; as, for example, *' Why did you fall from that 
tree and break your arm ? " His answer would be, " I could 
not help it ; the limb broke upon which I stood." Ask him 
now, " Why did you climb into the tree ? " and the answer 
will not be, " I could not help it," but " I wanted to gather 
some fruit ; " i. e., '"'• I chose to do it.'''* He thus distinguishes 
decisively between causation and volition ; and this distinc- 
tion, thus spontaneously taken, is a universal and ineradi- 
cable conception of man as man. 

3. Necessity and liberty. — These concepts, it is needless 
to say, are familiar to man as household things, and are 
peculiar to no particular race, age of the world, or degree of 
culture. The question is not raised here, whether either or 
both represent actual realities, but are they universally rec- 
ognized as contradictory actual concepts of mankind ? To 
this question there can be hut one answer : either of them 
may be an illusion, in fact, but it is a universal illusion. 
Men universally conceive both liberty and necessity as act- 
ual attributes of beings. 

1^ II. Identification, severally, of the First and of the Sec- 
ond Terms of these Correlated Pairs of Concepts, — A second 



278 THE WILL: 

preliminary step may now obviously be taken, namely : all 
the antecedents in these several pairs may be coordinated into 
one category, and all the consequents into another, without 
contrariety, and without doing violence to any one of them 
as conceived and affirmed by either the personal or the pop- 
ular consciousness of men. 

1. We may identify operation^ causation^ and necessity^ 
as coordinate and congruous attributes of being, thus origi- 
nating the category of necessity ; and — 2. We may identify 
action^ volition^ and freedom, as similarly coordinate and 
congruous, and thus originate the category of liberty. 

It is not apparent how these complementary processes can 
be refused or contravened, in the light of either the personal 
or the popular consciousness of mankind. The fact, if fact it 
be, is easily verified by any earnest student, and, when thus 
verified, must be accepted, no matter what may be its bear- 
ings upon preconceived theories of volition. No theory of 
the will is worth any thing that will not abide, absolutely, a 
simple appeal to the actual consciousness of the individual 
and of the race. 

Sec. II. — Affirmation of the Reality of the Cate- 
gory OF Necessity. 

^ I. Causation and Necessity are ths Actual Attributes of 
Operation. — The terms here used are familiar ones, and enter 
into the daily experience of common life, and their actual 
congruity is easily determined. We speak indifierently of 
the operations of Nature, of mechanism, and of our own 
minds, and in every case we recognize causation and necessi- 
ty as attributes essential to the thought involved. Nature is 
uniformly conceived as under the dominion of law ; machin- 
ery, as controlled by it ; and, where the term operation is in- 
telligently applied to the processes of mind, it is done in 
view of the fact that many of the psychical, as well as of the 
physio-psychical and physical, processes of man's complex 
soul-life are as really under the domination of causation, and 
consequently of necessity, as are the processes of the mate- 



FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 279 

rial universe. The fact, however, remains unimpaired, thatj 
whenever the term operation is strictly applicable to any- 
process, it is uniformly accompanied by the correlated attri- 
butes of causation and necessity. 

% II. Operation, as conditioned by Causation and Neces- 
sity, is attributed primarily to Matter. — This truth has been 
incidentally stated in our previous discussions, and needs lit- 
tle more than formal restatement here. No one at all cogni- 
zant with the developments of modern science can doubt its 
propriety. The extension of the terms operation^ causation, 
and necessity, to the psj^chical nature, may at first thought, 
by some persons, be deemed improper; but, as will appear 
more clearly in the sequel, our intellections, emotions, and 
desires, are operations of mind conditioned by causation and 
necessity, and are not free actions, in the proper sense of the 
term. 

Men universally and spontaneously speak of the opera- 
tions of Nature and of natural causes, but never of its ac- 
tions, notwithstanding the popular tendency to personify or 
individualize Nature, and attribute to it human or rather 
divine intelligence and attributes. Men, instinctively, con- 
ceive of winds and tempests, of sunshine and shower, of melt- 
ing snow and freezing waters, of revolving planets and fall- 
ing leaves, as operations always, as actions never. These 
facts can be so readily verified that to offer proof were idle. 

Sec. III. — ^ApriEMATiON of the Reality of the Cate- 
GOKY OF Liberty. 

^ I. Volition and Liberty are actually identified as the Ne- 
cessary Attributes of Action. — Action and agency are con- 
cepts as familiar as process and operation ; and, as the latter 
are conditioned by causation and necessity, so the former 
predicate volitioii and liberty as their essential attributes. 
This partition and predication of attributes is at once primi- 
tive and universal among men. The child and the savage 
recognize it as spontaneously as the philosopher ; the peas- 
ant as decisively as the scholar ; and he who would theo- 



280 THE WILL: 

retically deny it must do it in language based upon the hy- 
pothesis he denies. 

^ II. Action or Agency, as thus conditioned by Volition 
and Liberty, is predicated, spontaneously, universally, and ex- 
clusively, of Man. — It is not, of course, intended here to deny 
the existence of God, or of other voluntary intelligences ; 
but only to draw the line sharply between the categories of 
necessity and liberty as we know them practically in this 
life. As thus conceived, men as spontaneously and univer- 
sally affirm action or agency, as conditioned by volition and 
liberty, to be an attribute of man, as they do operation, con- 
ditioned by causation and necessity, to be an attribute of Na- 
ture. It would, a priori^ seem incredible that any one could 
contravene truths so obvious ; yet it has been done, not how- 
ever from the stand-point of the personal consciousness^ to 
which such objectors never appeal in support of their hy- 
pothesis, but from that of some a priori metaphysical or 
theological theory. Nor is this strange ; the most obvious 
facts are those, precisely, which ardent theorists overlook. 
The grass and flowers which we habitually tread under foot 
are always those which we practically never see ; and the 
testimony of consciousness to the earnest polemic is as 
worthless as the trodden grass. But, since the truth of our 
proposition has been challenged, the issue must be fairly 
tried ; and here we appeal to consciousness as manifested : 

1. In the personal consciousness of the reader. — This is a 
question of fact, which every man is competent to test for 
himself by raising the simple inquiry : " Do I, spontaneously 
and universally, conjoin, explicitly or implicitly, to the con- 
ception of action or agency, as an attribute of manhood, the 
concepts of volition and liberty, or do I not ? Would I hold 
any man morally responsible for an act performed in a 
dream, in a state of somnainbulism or of insanity, in which 
there was obviously no true volition or liberty of action^ or 
would I not ? " These are questions every reader must an- 
swer for himself, and his answer is the decisive testimony of 
his personal consciousness on this issue. 



FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 281 

2. In the forms of language. — These are but crystallized 
expressions of the popular or common consciousness of man- 
kind. Their testimony, it need hardly be said, is uniformly 
and decisively in favor of the principle here posited. Com- 
mon language uniformly identifies operation, causation, and 
necessity, on the one hand, and action, volition, and liberty, 
on the other ; and this fact is so obtrusive that it were idle 
to offer examples. 

3; In the phenomena of moral responsibility and moral 
accountahility. — Here the argument is twofold, including, 
first, the existence and principles of human government, 
which are unquestionably based upon the postulate that the 
actions of men are not mere operations conditioned by causa- 
tion and necessity^ but true actions conditioned by volition 
and liberty y and, second, the phenomena of conscience, or 
the moral sense of man, in whose courts he holds himself ac- 
countable, independently of the civil law, for his own actions 
as conditioned by volition and liberty, but in which he 
utterly refuses to criminate himself for mental operations 
which were consciously caused and necessitated by any pow- 
er external to and independent of his own will. 

In other words, the plea of absolute duress, where actual- 
ly sustained, is final, in bar of judgment, either in the civil 
court or in the court of conscience ; and the plea of duress 
is nothing more, and nothing else, than a plea of foreign or 
external causation and necessity. Conscience and the civil 
law alike treat the acts of lunatics or madmen, where there 
is no true volition or liberty, as they treat the whirlwind 
and the storm ; that is, as evils to be guarded against, but 
not as crimes to be punished. Where liberty and volition 
are wanting, civil government is an impossibility, and moral 
responsibility and moral accountability are unmeaning 
words. 

It seems to be idle to multiply words in proof of a princi- 
ple so obvious as the one in question; and there are, in fact, 
few persons who would either care or venture to challenge 
its truth, if stated as an independent proposition ; but there 



282 THE WILL: 

are many who do, in fact, implicitly challenge it, in the 
interest of their own pet theories of volition, as an integral 
element of soul-life. The truth, therefore, cannot be too 
clearly stated, or too strongly enforced, that in all questions 
pertaining to the will, as to other departments of mind, the 
testimony of consciousness is final and decisive^ and from it 
there can be no appeal whatever. What that testimony is 
has been clearly stated; and so stated, moreover, that every 
conscientious student can verify it for himself. 



CHAPTER II.— EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PERSOKALITY. 
Section I. — Laws of the Physical Peesonaxitt. 

If we now turn from the general conception of human 
action as conditioned by volition and liberty, in order to de- 
termine the secondary problem, whether liberty is a general 
attribute of manhood, inhering alike in man's material organ- 
ism and his spiritual nature, or whether it fastens exclusively 
upon some single element of his complex being, new con- 
ditions emerge. In the outset, it is obvious that his body, 
as a physical organism, must respond to the necessary laws 
of matter, both mechanical and chemical, and that all its 
powers and forces are conditioned by them. The soul may 
range at will, on the wings of thought, through all space 
and all duration; but the body, earth-born and earth-bound, 
is anchored to earth by the irresistible power of gravitation : 
the soul may soar to heaven and feed, in thought, upon 
angels' food ; but the body owns the supremacy of Nature's 
laws, and demands earthly food and drink to satisfy its hun- 
ger, and satiate its thirst, and its power may be measured 
in pounds and ounces, and is, in fact, exactly measured by 
the food, the air, the water, it consumes. This subjection of 
the physical organism to the laws of Nature, i. e., to causa- 
tion and necessity, is so obvious that the intelligent anatomist 
and physiologist would laugh to scorn any one who would 
venture to question a truth so well established. "Wherever 



EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PERSONALITY. 283 

else, then, liberty, as an element of humanity, may or may 
not inhere, it is assuredly not an attribute of the physical 
organism. 

Sec. II. — Laws of the Spiritual Peesoi^ality. 

^ I. Liberty not an Attribute of the Intellect. — ^If, now, 
the inquiry after liberty, as an attribute of manhood, be 
prosecuted in reference to the spiritual nature of man, it 
will be found that his intellectual processes, like his physi- 
cal system, respond to the laws of causation and of necessi- 
ty, and not to those of volition and liberty. 

1. Our percepts are mediated by our sensations, which 
obviously respond to the physical laws governing the mate- 
rial body and its organs of sense ; while the purely rational 
element of perception, namely, intuition, responds to the 
necessary laws, not of matter, but of thought. The asser- 
tion that man's perceptions are free can be true in no other 
possible sens-e than that he may open or close his eyes at 
pleasure ; or, in other words, he may, like the snail, withdraw 
himself, and refuse all perception whatever ; or, that he may, 
to a limited extent, choose the conditions under which he 
will perceive objects ; but, when he opens his eyes upon the 
light, he can in no wise choose what he will or will not see 
of the objects actually present to his senses. In other words, 
perception is a necessary^ and not a voluntary^ process. 

2. Our concepts are based upon our percepts, and are 
mediated, as has been already shown, by memory, with its 
laws of association, by imagination, and the processes of the 
synthetic judgment, no one of which is voluntary in its 
character, so that, both in their origin and their evolution, 
our concepts exclude the element of liberty in the true sense. 
The fact is neither ignored nor denied here that in concep- 
tion, in the play of the imagination, in recollection proper, 
and in the processes of abstraction, generalization, and 
classification, the will may and does intervene frequent- 
ly and effectively to modify, control, and change, the direc- 
tion, nature, or order of evolution of any one or more of these 



284 THE WILL: 

several elementary processes, so that our concepts may, in 
a certain proper sense, be said to be voluntary / but the fact 
remains that it can only do this by intelligently acting upon 
the memory, the imagination, or the synthetic judgment, in 
and through its own proper necessary laws, just as it can 
intervene to change the current or course of a stream of 
water. It is sometimes said that imagination is lawless, 
but this is true in no sense different from that in which it 
is said that the wind and weather are capricious. It only 
means, in either case, that the problems are so complex, 
and involve so many factors, that the law of their evolution, 
in the concrete instance, is practically undiscoverable, but 
we do not, therefore, infer that they are governed by no 
law whatever. 

3. Our beliefs are necessitated by the data given in per- 
ception, as modified in conception, and evolved under the 
necessary, logical forms of the analytical judgment. The 
syllogism, which has been shown to be the ultimate type of 
all reasoning, is not a type of volition and liberty, but of 
causation and necessity the most absolute. A man does not 
say, *' I believe the truth of a demonstration in geometry, 
because I choose to do so, but because I must ; I cannot dis- 
believe it if I would.'''' The same thing is true of every 
logical syllogism whatever, if the truth of the premises be' 
conceded or proved. 

An important problem, however, emerges at this point, 
in view of the necessary character of all human beliefs, 
namely : In what sense, and how far, is a man responsible 
for his beliefs or faith ? 

Moral responsibility for faith necessarily implies a volun- 
tary element in faith, to which it attaches, and apart from 
which it cannot exist. The possibility of such a voluntary 
element, and the mode of its operation, have already been suf- 
ficiently indicated, in general terms, but need more discrete 
enunciation in its relations to this specific problem. Every 
belief or faith involves two generic classes of elements, viz., 
first, data, premises, or materials ; and, second, logical men- 



EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PERSONALITY. 285 

tal processes ; that is to say, every syllogism (hence all rea- 
soning) involves premises and a conclusion. The first of 
these factors, the premises, may be characterized as contin- 
gent, and hence subject to modification by the will, which 
may at pleasure exclude part of the actual data of judgment 
really possessed on the one hand, or may earnestly search for 
and include all the additional data possible on the other. 
The will may thus either compel the reason to act on con- 
sciously imperfect premises, and thus necessitate an incom- 
plete or false conclusion, or it may compel it to include per- 
fect and complete data, and, so far forth at least, compel a 
correct conclusion. 

The second factor, namely, the logical processes of the 
reason, are subjected to necessary laws which determine their 
evolution, and are therefore but very slightly, if at all, under 
the control of the will. N^or is it needful, in order to make 
man morally responsible for his beliefs, that it should be. In 
its control over, and determination of, the premises upon 
which the reason must rest its inferences, the will is abun- 
dantly able, at any time, to cast the sword of Brennus into the 
wavering scale, and to determine the practical faiths that 
govern the soul. Man is not only morally bound to judge 
correctly, according to the actual light he possesses in any 
given case, but he is bound to grasp and use the best light 
possible to him under the actual conditions of the problem. 
Failing in any case to do this, he is morally responsible for . 
any evil that results from his neglect. But if, on the con- 
trary, he has diligently sought the best light possible to him 
in the given case, has guarded jealously the logical correct- 
ness of the process of reasoning, and has thus candidly 
sought after truth, and truth only, he cannot be condemned 
if, at last, his soul fastens upon an imperfect or even a false 
faith. Man is here, as everywhere, judged according to that 
which he hath, and not according to that which he hath not. 
Man is, therefore, morally accountable for his faith so far as 
its development is actually or potentially under the control 
of his will. 



286 THE WILL: 

% II. Liberty not an Attribute of the Sensibilities. — ^In 
passing from the sphere of the intellect to that of the sen- 
sibilities, the conditions of the problems are not materially 
changed; the same law of causation and necessity still rules 
supreme : 

1. Our emotions are based upon and called into being by 
corresponding intellections, and are, like them, both in their 
origin and in their evolution, mediated by the necessary 
laws of the sensibility. We cannot, at pleasure, feel, or re- 
fuse to feel, emotions of wonder, surprise, admiration, pity, 
etc. These forms of the sensibility take possession of us as 
a strong man armed, and we cannot choose but feel. 

2. Our desires, in turn, are based upon our intellections 
and conditioned by our emotions, and consequently par- 
take of the like characters of causation and necessity that 
inhere in their conditioning elements. The relations of 
the problem are so obvious that argument seems use- 
less. Our desires are not, in any sense, voluntary ele- 
ments, although their evolution may be indirectly modified 
and controlled by the will. This thought brings us back 
to the results of our previous analysis, viz., that desire, so 
far as it is instinctive, possesses no moral character ; and 
that no man is responsible for the simple springing up of 
desire in the soul until the loill consents to^ or acquiesces in, 
its continued existence. 

. The general truth that causation and necessity, and not 
liberty, are the normal attributes of our sensibilities, is deci- 
sively vindicated by this fact, that no man feels himself to 
be morally responsible for the awakening, or the transient 
existence, of emotions or desires which he neither indulges 
nor cherishes, but seeks to exclude and banish from his 
soul. 

^ ni. Liberty is an Attribute of the Will. — The exclusion 
successively of liberty as an attribute of the physical, the 
intellectual, and the sensitive natures, both affirms and em- 
phasizes our previous identification of volition and liberty as 
congruous attributes of action, or, in other words, of the true 



EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PERSONALITY. 287 

personality. The loill is, therefore, the man^ in the truest 
and highest sense of the word, the representative of the 
spirituality, of the autocracy, and of the moral responsibility 
and moral accountability of humanity. In volition, con- 
ceived as a free act, we have, in fact, passed to the limit of 
conception, in opposing the spiritual to the physical element 
in man. Causation and necessity are the true representative 
types of the material — volition and liberty of the spiritual. 
The one category distinctly allies man to earth and the sphere 
of secondary causation; the other just as distinctly allies 
him to God and the sphere oi primary causation — a fact ex- 
actly corresponding to the divine word which declares 
that " God created man in His own image," words to which, 
it would seem, no intelligible meaning can be attached, on 
any hypothesis that does not recognize in man such liberty 
of action as constitutes him a true primary cause 'in his own 
proper sphere of activity. 

Sec. 3. — The Will the Teue PEESoifALiTY and a Teue 

Cause. 

\ I. The Will the True Personality. — Our analysis of the 
actual facts of consciousness has thus resulted in the identifi- 
cation of the will, the personality, and self, or the ego: and 
the fact is self-evident, in the light of consciousness, that we, 
intuitively, postulate moral responsibility and moral account- 
ability as attributes of self, or the ego, conceived as a free, 
voluntary agent, or, to recur to a previous distinction, all true 
action as such is predicated of 2^ free volition, and, where this 
does not exist, no moral accountability can exist. The ex- 
pressions, " I did this," " I willed that," " I chose the oth- 
er, " are familiar to us as household things, and are the ex- 
pressions of the conscious existence of self, or the ego, as a 
free, morally responsible personality ; and in them, will is 
decisively marked as the central and characteristic element 
of true manhood, the seat of all moral responsibility, the ob- 
ject of moral approval or disapproval, and the true sover- 
eign in the complete hierarchy of the faculties and powers 



288 THE WILL: 

of the self-conscious soul. Without its action and assent, 
as expressed in a true volition, a man may, in dreams, in 
somnambulism, or in insanity, act instinctively or automati- 
cally, but his manhood is lost, and with it all moral responsi- 
bility. 

^ II. The Will, or the Ego, is a True Cause. — The concept 
of cause, rationally considered, involves two distinct classes 
of causes, radically distinct from each other, yet equally ne- 
cessary and familiar as actual concepts, viz. : 

1. Mrst or primary causes ; i. e., those which are solely 
causes, and in no sense, and under no circumstances, effects ; 
and — 

2. Secondary causes/ i. e., those which are alternately 
effects and causes in the chain of causation — effects, when 
considered in relation to the proximate cause which called 
them into being and gave them their vitality ; causes, when 
conceived in relation to the effects or events resulting from 
the causal force inhering in them. 

It is obvious that secondary causes are not true causes, 
but mere effects conditioning other effects still farther re- 
moved from the real or efficient cause. If, for example, I 
should shoot a man through the heart with a revolver, and 
the question be raised as to the cause of his death, the sur- 
geon making the post-mortem examination would refer it to 
the bullet in the heart ; the coroner's jury, however, would 
not rest satisfied with that, but would seek the weapon, the 
gun or pistol, from which it was discharged. ISTor would they 
then be satisfied ; this would represent to them only a sec- 
ondary cause, i. e., an effect ; and they would still pursue 
their inquiries into the cause of the death in question. Now, 
let it be proved that I fired the fatal shot, will that jury still be 
satisfied and rest their inquiries ? No ! another question must 
still be asked : " Were you the voluntary or wilful, or only the 
accidental and innocent cause, or rather occasion, of the man's 
death ? " Upon this question would rest my character and my 
fate. That jury seeks, and rightfully seeks, the true cause of 
the death in question, and does not and cannot rest satisfied 



EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PERSONALITY. 289 

with any link in the chain save i\iQ first — with any cause of 
the death save the first cause ; and it will not accept any 
cause as o, first cause save o^free^ intelligent ^personality. Had 
it been shown, for example, that the sudden death had result- 
ed from the bite of a venomous serpent, and not from the 
accidental pistol-shot, the jury, as a coroner'' s jury, would 
have been satisfied, but the human soul would not, but 
would still ask, as a little child once asked the writer, " Who 
made snakes to bite men ? " and, when I replied " God made 
them, " asked the second question : " Was not God had to 
make snakes to bite men?" The child grasped, strongly 
and decisively, the concept of a true first cause^ and ascribed 
to it, exclusively, the moral responsibility involved in the 
facts, as it conceived them. 

It is obvious that all our conceptions of moral responsi- 
bility, all our forms of language, and all government, are 
based upon the conception and affirmation of the fact that 
man is a true cause, i. e., a first cause, in. relation to his own 
volitions or actions. In our classification of causes, we dis- 
criminate radically between ^rs^ or real causes, and second or 
apparent causes. In the first class, men intuitively and uni- 
versally place God and men, recognizing them as intelligent, 
free, voluntary agents ; and, in the second, they include all 
elements or beings, material or spiritual, which are condi- 
tioned by causation and necessity. 

It is precisely in this conception of will, as a true person- 
ality and a true cause, i. e., a first or primary cause, that 
we attain to any rational conceptions of true moral responsi- 
bility, on the one hand, or any intelligent comprehension of 
the divinely-revealed truth that " God created man in His 
own image," on the other. We cannot conceive God in any 
other relation than that of a free, voluntary cause ; nor can 
we, in any comprehensible sense, conceive man to bear the 
image of God, only as he is also conceived as a free, voluntary 
cause. 



13 



290 THE WILL: 

CHAPTER IIL— ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

EVOLUTIOIT OF THE INTEGRAL ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

Every act of volition, in the light of consciousness, in- 
volves or presupposes certain elements or conditions, which 
must now be distinctly evolved and discretely investigated. 
These are — 

1. The concept of a possible action that may be per- 
formed, if I so choose, or will. 

2. The concept of motives inducing or persuading me to 
do, or not to do, the proposed action. 

3. The power of choice, i. e., the power to choose or re- 
fuse the proposed act in its relations to me as a free person- 
ality; and — 

4. The power of executive volition, i. e., the power to 
put forth a volition to do, or not to do, the proposed act, un- 
der the conceived conditions. 

In order to the typical completeness of human action, 
as such, there must be a ffth element, namely, the actual 
putting forth of physical energy in accordance with the 
proper executive volition ; but this, however important 
in itself, and in its actual relations to humanity, is not an 
element of an act of volition, but a consequent to it, that 
may, or may not, accompany it, since sudden paralysis, 
death, or any one of a thousand other conceivable causes, 
may intervene between executive volition and physical ac- 
tion ; and, morally, an act is complete in the executive voli- 
tion. 

Some authors have identified choice and executive voli- 
tion, but they are clearly not identical, logically ; and grave 
reasons will appear, in the sequel, for doubt whether, in fact, 
choice and executive volition uniformly coincide with each 
other. 



ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 291 

Sectioit I. — Possible Actions consideeed. 

In considering possible actions as conditions precedent of 
will, rather than as elements of volition proper, there are 
certain facts that need to be decisively stated, and thus 
brought out clearly in the light of consciousness, as essen- 
tial phenomena of volition, which may not safely be ignored 
or neglected. 

% I. Altemativity is a Condition Precedent of Possible Ac- 
tion. — In other words, under no possible circumstances can 
the soul be constrained to put forth a volition where but one 
single act of volition is possible to it. This principle is de- 
cisively established by the fact that, under no possible con- 
ditions of human life, can the category of contradiction be 
excluded from the sphere of volition. The will can at least, 
like his holiness the pope, as an ultimate alternative, always 
enter a " non possumus / " in other words, it* may always 
choose between the proposed volition and no volition. Pos- 
sible volitions, therefore, are absolutely alternative. Ordi- 
narily, altemativity of possible volition presupposes the 
category of contrariety, and not merely that of contradiction, 
i. e., the will may put forth any one of many possible voli- 
tions under the given conditions. It is obvious that this 
altemativity is a necessary resultant of the essential condi- 
tions of human nature, and not merely an accidental circum- 
stance that might conceivably, at least, have been otherwise. 

i" II. Altemativity of Possible Action a Condition Prece- 
dent of Liberty. — It has passed into a proverb, that " where 
there is no choice, there is no liberty^'* and manifestly there 
can be no choice where there are no alternatives between 
which I may choose. It does not follow, nor is it implied, 
that, in order to true altemativity, or to true choice, we our- 
selves should be able to predetermine the alternatives between 
which the volition must decide. Possible actions to any indL 
vidual self, or ego, at any given period of his existence, are 
evidently a compound resultant, or complex, of his own past 
volitions coordinated with all other forces, voluntary and in- 



292 THE WILL: 

voluntary, acting in relation to or with him. But none the 
less is it consciously true, in every concrete instance, that true 
voluntary action predicates, as a condition precedent, alterna- 
tivity of possible action. 

Sec. II. — Motives coj^^sideked. 

% I. Nature and Classification of Motives. — A motive may 
be defined to be that which sustains to the will such a rela- 
tion as to constitute it an inducement to the putting forth 
of some definite volition. Our previous discussions have in- 
dicated the fact that the will, as the representative of self, or 
the personality, is approachable only through the intellect 
and sensibilities, and through them only in their natural or- 
der. Our sensibilities all presuppose, logically, antecedent 
intellections ; and our volitions, antecedent emotions and de- 
sires. The classification of the sensibilities, in fact, proposed 
in this treatise, predicates of the getieric class of the desires 
the exclusive power to act upon the will in the relation of 
motives to volition. From this stand-point, it is obvious 
that all true motives fall into two classes, viz. : 

1. Natural desires^ including, in this category, the appe- 
tites, propensities, and affections of the human soul, which 
are here, for obvious reasons, classed together ; and — 

2. Moral ifnpulses, or the power of conscience, which 
must here, for reasons just as obvious, be sharply and deci- 
sively discriminated from the natural desires. 

We are here, incidentally but decisively, enabled to an- 
swer a question often asked, viz., "Are circumstances, in 
any sense, motives to volition ? " As circumstances simply, 
they are not ; but in so far as they have power to awaken 
emotion, generate desire, or stimulate conscience, they be- 
come actual motives to action, or, more correctly, they gen- 
erate motives. Again, circumstances which are not motives, 
and which cannot generate motives in the soul, may, in fact, 
condition the operation of motives ; but they are not, there- 
fore, in any proper sense, motives. 

TIL Necessary Plurality of Motives. — Motives to volition 



ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 293 

are never, in fact, singular. This principle is necessitated by 
the previously-established fact of the necessary alternativity 
of possible actions and volitions. Apart from this, however, 
the fact is susceptible of independent proof, drawn from the 
essential nature of motives considered in themselves. No 
voluntary action is possible to man under normal conditions 
(acts of insanity, etc., are of course excluded) which does not 
involve some degree of moral responsibility in itself or in its 
relations, and which does not, therefore, predicate moral mo- 
tives to do or not to do, as well as natural desires. Or- 
dinarily, the motives to action in any concrete instance are 
not merely plural, but manifold. Argument in a case so ob- 
vious as this is idle ; the testimony of consciousness here is 
unequivocal. 

^ III. Plurality of Motives the Second Condition Precedent 
of Human Liberty. — This second condition precedent of lib- 
erty of volition is not less obtrusively evident than alterna- 
tivity of possible action. If there were but one possible mo- 
tive, in any concrete instance, we should be shut in to the 
affirmation, on the one hand, of a necessitated choice^ which 
is a contradiction in terms ; or, on the other, to the operation 
of a choice in opposition to all the possible motives inducing 
any choice whatsoever. In fact, however, as has been al- 
ready shown, such a condition of things does not and can- 
not exist ; motives are not singular but multiple, not one but 
many. No man ever yet has been able to plead, truthfully, 
as an excuse for wrong action, that there was no sufficient 
motive under the actual condition of things for him to do 
right. 

Sec. III. — Choice considered. 

^ T. Nature of Choice. — Choice, as an act of the human 
soul, must be recognized as one of the primitive facts of con- 
sciousness. It may, perhaps, be defined with sufficient accu- 
racy to be the expression of the preference of the conscious 
soul for one object or course of action rather than another, 
under the conditions of the problem actually presented, in 



294 THE WILL: 

any concrete instance. Choice is strictly a phenomenon sui 
generis^ having absolutely no proper analogon in ISTature 
whatsoever. 

1. Physical analogies considered. — Psychologists have 
not unfrequently attempted to explain and illustrate choice 
by physical analogies. The best representative of this class 
is unquestionably Edwards's famous pair of balances, deli- 
cately poised, and sensitive to the touch of the millionth part 
of a grain. But in the light of consciousness, this simile 
must be rejected, as not only illusory but deceptive. It is 
argued that, as the balances are free to yield to the prepon- 
derating weight, in this scale or that, so choice is free, in like 
manner, to yield to the preponderance of motives in favor of 
this or that proposed cause of action. With reference to the 
balances, at least, this is a deceptive and false mode of stat- 
ing the facts : they are not free to yield, they are compelled 
to obey, or, still better, they are necessitated to obey, the law 
of gravitation; and this is not liberty^ hut necessity of the 
sternest and most absolute character. Liberty implies al- 
ter nativity, but here is no alternativity ; the chained pris- 
oner, who cannot lift hand or foot, is in this sense just as 
free as are the balances, for he is free to lie and rot in his 
chains and dungeon, precisely as the balance is free to sink 
down under the preponderating weight. In fact, the balance, 
yielding to the power of gravity, is the type of the most re- 
lentless, peremptory, and absolute causation known to man. 
Yet this is gravely presented to us as the true analogon of 
choice in the human soul. No man conceives the sinking of 
the balance to be a/ree act, but all men do conceive choice, 
as present to the personal consciousness, to be a free act ; 
and to this Mr. Edwards himself was no exception, since he 
introduced this strange analogy as an illustration of the free- 
dom of human choice. But if this illustration be rejected, as 
in principle it must, it is idle to note any other. The mate- 
rial universe does not and cannot throw any light upon the 
mysterious phenomena of human choice, however persistently 
and intelligently it be interrogated. 



ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 295 

2. national analogies considered. — These are not really 
more apposite than the former, and cast no real light upon 
the problem, if their legitimacy be conceded. The only one 
which the writer now recalls, that merits even a passing no- 
tice, is a comparison of the phenomena of choice to the bal- 
ance of probabilities in the doctrine of chances, as conceived 
and computed mathematically. The analogy is again un- 
real ; and, if its reality were conceded, it amounts only to 
the illustration of one psychological mystery by another. 
The conclusion is therefore inevitable, that choice as an ele- 
ment of volition is a phenomenon sui generis, that is and can 
be known only in consciousness. It is not amenable to any 
a priori process whatever, and cannot be illustrated by anal- 
ogies drawn from either the natural or spiritual world. He, 
therefore, who would comprehend the nature of choice, must 
interrogate consciousness earnestly, impartially, and persist- 
ently ; it is the only competent witness in the case. 

^ 11. Conditions of Choice. — ^These have been in part de- 
clared, in our previous discussions of the essential conditions 
of an act of will, but must be presented discretely here, viz. : 

1. Alternativity of objects. — There can be no choice 
where but a single object, motive, or course of action, is pres- 
ent to consciousness. To use a cant phrase, " Hobson's 
choice is no choice at all." 

2. Plurality of motives. — Alternativity of objects ne- 
cessitates plurality of motives, and this, in turn, is an essen- 
tial condition precedent of choice, which is the expression of 
the preference of the soul for the one or the other set of con- 
trary motives presented, as well as of its preference for the 
one or the other course of action between which it is called 
upon to decide. 

3. Independence of agency, action, or causation. — To this 
postulate some may be inclined to demur ; and yet it is not 
obvious how, from the simple stand-point of consciousness, 
this conclusion can be avoided. As psychologists, we are 
bound to discount, decisively, all a priori theories based upon 
theological premises, or other foreign elements ; and fasten 



296 THE WILL: 

exclusively upon the direct testimony of consciousness as a 
finality in the decision of this issue. But, if consciousness 
testifies directly and decisively to any fact whatever in this 
complex phenomenon, it testifies to the unrestrained freedom 
of the soul in its choices. It may be said, however, that 
consciousness testifies only to the positive facts and phenom- 
ena, and not to 2^ossihle facts or conditions of the actual phe- 
nomena. But this is a fallacy ; consciousness, if it testify at 
all, in reference to its own acts and affections, must testify to 
them under the actual conditions of their evolution, or mani- 
festation; i. e., it must reveal or testify to a free act, as 
free; and to a necessitated act, as necessitated. Will it then 
be said that consciousness does not and cannot testify to lib- 
erty and necessity, as attributes of self, or the ego ? The an- 
swer is decisive : This is not only not true, but it is, on the 
contrary, absurdly false. The man who chooses or acts 
under positive duress is painfully conscious of the obnoxious 
fact. Will it then be said that only the liberty and necessi- 
ty of which the soul is unconscious, are those that inhere in 
its own complex nature, in the correlation of its parts to 
each other, and to the external world ? The decisive answer 
is: Man is conscious of necessity in the operations of his 
intellect and sensibilities, and especially in his processes of 
reasoning (as will appear more clearly in the sequel). On 
what pretext, then, can it be asserted that he is unconscious 
of an actually existing and controlling necessity in his acts of 
choice, if indeed any such necessity exists ? The truth is, the 
soul is conscious of freedom in its acts of choice, and its tes- 
timony is just as credible here as it can be anywhere ; if dis- 
credited here, it must be discredited altogether. 

1" ni. Relations of Motives to Choice. — The next problem 
that presents itself is the real relation of motives to choice ; 
and this must be carefully analyzed, for it is one of the piv- 
otal elements upon which turns the whole controversy. 

I. Motives are, hi no sense, the causes of choice ; i. e., mo- 
tives are not causes of which choice 'is the effect. Edwards's 
theory that motives are to choice as the weights are to the 



ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 297 

balances, and that choice responds invariably to the prepon- 
derance of motives, is wholly untenable. It was incumbent 
upon the author of this hypothesis, in order to entitle it to 
respectful consideration, not to say to credence, to determine, 
proximately at least, the nexus that connects the motive and 
the choice, as the physicist connects the force of gravity with 
the sinking balance. He assumes, indeed, that the motives 
actually chosen are in the concrete instance the stronger, 
simply because volition inclined to them rather than to their 
opposites. In other words, he argues in a vicious circle: 1. 
They prevail, because they are the stronger; and 2. They 
must be the stronger, because they actually prevail. The 
true appeal here must be directly to consciousness, since the 
phenomena considered have no analogous in nature, and 
must, therefore, be known in themselves, or not known at 
all. But the testimony of consciousness is decisive, that the 
soul is an absolute autocrat in its dealings with motives, and 
that it can, and does at pleasure, throw the sword of Bren- 
nus into the scale, and decide in favor of the weaker rather 
than the stronger motive, in any conceivable sense in which 
those adjectives can be applied to motives. Nay, more, it 
does, in every man's experience, at times act from mere ca- 
price, for which it finds itself unable to account even to itself, 
against all the confessedly more powerful motives that urge 
men to a given cause of action. It is mere casuistry to urge, 
in opposition to facts so familiar as these, the objection that 
the motives actually preferred must needs be stronger in the 
given case, because they actually prevail. This is simply to 
heg the question, and is a gross misconception, resulting from 
the application of deceptive physical analogies. This pro- 
cedure is all the more absurd, in view of the fact that it is 
used to discredit the testimony of the only competent and 
impartial witness in the case. The fact must here be insisted 
upon, decisively, that the only and the final appeal must be 
to consciousness, and it may fairly be presented in this form : 
Am I conscious of any sort or measure of constraint or ne- 
cessity in choice, such as I experience in the processes of 



298 THE WILL: 

reasoning, where the presence of the element of necessity is 
marked and obtrusive ? If I am asked, for example, " Why 
did you act so and so ? " I answer, " Because I chose so to do." 
If now the second question is asked, " Could you not have 
chosen otherwise ? " I must answer, in the light of conscious- 
ness, " Yes ! " If it be asked yet again, " Why did you not 
choose otherwise ? " I should not answer, and I never heard 
any one answer^ " I could not ! " !N'ow let the same questions 
be asked in reference to some logical conclusion from a true 
syllogism, and the answer will not be, " I believe thus and 
so because I choose," but, "I cannot help believing it in 
the face of the admitted premises." It is sometimes said 
that mind is not and cannot be conscious of liberty and ne- 
cessity, as such, in its processes. But this is absurdly false. 
We are distinctly conscious of necessity in our logical infer- 
ences ; conscious that we must believe this, that we cannot 
believe that, however much we may desire not to do the one, 
and to do the other ; and this consciousness of necessity all 
men do and must accredit. But if consciousness be accred- 
ited when it testifies to the presence of necessity, in the pro- 
cesses of reasoning, on what possible pretext can it be dis- 
credited when it testifies to its own freedom in choice? 
Again, we are conscious that the correlation of the premises, 
in a true syllogism, necessitates the conclusion ; but we are 
not conscious that the correlation of motives, in any given 
act of choice, either causes or necessitates the actual choice ; 
but, on the contrary, we have an invincible, intuitive convic- 
tion that, every other circumstance remaining the same, we 
could have chosen otherwise — that our choice was voluntary, 
and not necessitated ; a causal^ and not a caused^ act. 

2. Motives are the occasions rather than the conditions 
of choice. — ^Motives, adjudged strictly in the light of con- 
sciousness, are occasions rather than co7iditions of choice ; 
though to the use of the term condition there is no other ob- 
jection than its liability to be confounded with causation, in 
consequence of the fact that, in certain relations, the two are 
used interchangeably. Motives are the occasions or condi- 



J 



ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 299 

tions of volition, in the sense that, in the total absence of 
motives of every sort, the will, obviously, would not act at 
all ; just as, in the absence of all sensation, there could be no 
intuition ; yet sensation is, as has been decisively proved, the 
occasion^ and not the cause, of intuition. Two or three dis- 
crete observations are pertinent here : 

(a) The relation of causation is so familiar, and so uni- 
versal in the material world, that it is difficult to avoid its 
unconscious influence even in the sphere of consciousness, 
where its incongruity is obvious. 

(b) The postulate of the absolute universality/ of causation 
is rationally absurd, as it ultimates in the affirmation of an 
infinite series of secondary causes, decisively excluding the 
possibility of ^ first or uncaused cause. It results, moreover, 
in fatalism of the most remorseless character, which excludes, 
not only chance, but liberty of any and of every kind ; and 
asserts an absolute dominion over the thoughts, the feelings, 
and the volitions of man, reducing them all to simple me- 
chanical operations, not differing in fact, or in principle, from 
the revolution of the planets in their orbits. On this hy- 
pothesis, man is free in precisely the same sense, and to the 
same extent, that a leaf borne by the wind, or a twig float- 
ing upon the waters, is free ; for he too is free to drift on- 
ward on the tides of remorseless destiny. 

(c) The necessary la,ws of human thought compel us to 
affirm a first cause, as well as to recognize second causes. 
This has been already illustrated in the supposed case of the 
investigations of a coroner's jury into the cause of the death 
of an individual found dead under suspicious circumstances. 
There it was shown that the bullet in the head was a suffi- 
cient physical cause of death ; but it was only a secondary 
cause. A discharged pistol lying near at hand would suffi- 
ciently account for the bullet ; but that, too, is only a second- 
ary cause, and the jury is still unsatisfied ; but wherefore ? 
Simply because the mind demands a cause of the phenomena, 
of an altogether different character ; it demands 2^ first or in- 
dependent cause, i. e., a moral agent. This fact becomes 



300 THE WILL: . 

yet more evident if we vary the supposition slightly, and 
suppose that the surgical examination had revealed the cause 
of the death to have been a blow upon the head, and exami- 
nation had proved the fatal implement to have been the 
limb of a tree falling from above. At once the investigation 
ceases, but wherefore ? Here, again, are only second causes, 
the limb, the tree, the wind ; and yet the jury is satisfied. 
The reason is, the investigation has now connected the death 
of the man with a chain of secondary causes, whose only 
possible first cause is God, and hence the verdict, in such 
cases, is ordinarily, " Died by the visitation of God." ]^o 
fact of consciousness is clearer or more marked than this 
intuitive and universal affirmation of a radical distinction 
between caused and causal acts ; between effects referred to 
the chain of natural causation and acts referred to human 
agency. But this distinction is not merely illusory; it is 
absurd, if motives are the cause of choice, and choice the 
cause of volitions. 

3. Simple incomprehensibility is no evidence of the fal- 
sity of any theory of the phenomena of mental action. — The 
distinction between simple incomprehensibility and self-con- 
tradiction must here be decisively recognized, l^o single 
mental process whatever, in itself and in its relations, is in- 
deed comprehensible, however much familiarity may hide its 
real mysteries. The phenomena of sensation are, in fact, just 
as incomprehensible as those of volition, or as the theory of 
2^ free non-necessitated choice, uncontrolled by motives in the 
relations of causation. Self-contradiction or absurdity is, on 
the contrary, a decisive test or proof of falsehood, and is 
an absolute bar to belief; as, for example, no man can believe 
that two things exactly equal to the same thing are not equal 
to each other. 

^ lY. Resulting Conclusions.^-1. A necessitated choice is, 
in the light of consciousness, a true self-contradiction, and 
therefore is at once false and absurd. The contrary theory, 
that the will, in the act of choice, is a first and not 2^. second 
cause, is an agent 2,-iv^ not an effect, may be incomprehensible, 
but it is neither self-contradictory nor absurd. 



ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 301 

2. Moral responsibility or accountability for a necessi- 
tated choice^ that is, a choice generated by motives as causes, 
in the same sense that gravity is the cause of the fall of the 
apple, is self-contradictory and absurd. No man could feel 
himself to be morally responsible for his choices, if the con- 
sciousness of freedom were taken away, and he should become 
conscious of the same necessity in choosing that he expe- 
riences in the processes of reasoning. Yet men are conscious- 
ly morally accountable for their actual choices. 

Psychologists have confused themselves and others at 
this point, by interpolating intelligence in the place of lib- 
erty, as the essential condition precedent of moral accounta- 
bility. It is true that intelligence is a condition precedent of 
choice, but that very fact postulates freedom also ; otherwise, 
intelligence were but a delusion and a mockery. A man re- 
cently fell from a lofty building upon the head of a fellow- 
man, killing him instantly, l^ow, let it be supposed that, in 
the act of falling, he saw the man beneath, saw that he was 
falling directly upon his head, and perceived that the result 
must be the death of the party below ; would that knowledge 
have added to, or varied in the slightest degree, his own 
moral responsibility in the premises ? Here, by the condi- 
tions of the hypothesis noted above, we have intelligence 
conjoined to a necessitated choice {since he coidd not choose 
but to fall upon the m.ari) ; but could there be any moral re- 
sponsibility for the death of the victim, if the supposition be 
posited that the fall was the result of unforeseen and un- 
avoidable circumstances ? Surely not, for here there was no 
liberty^ and intelligence cannot take its place. A necessitated 
choice is a contradiction in terms, and, if it could exist, could 
carry with it no moral responsibility whatever. Moral ac- 
countability, therefore, demands, as an essential condition 
precedent of its being, intelligent free agency^ or, in other 
words, a choice not causatively controlled by motives ; pre- 
cisely such a choice, in fact, as every man's personal con- 
sciousness spontaneously affirms when impartially examined, 
unbiassed by a priori hypotheses. 



302 THE WILL: 

Sec. IV. — Executive Volition consideeed. 

*|f I. Nature of Executive Volition. — In executive voli- 
tion we have the crowning element or movement of an act 
of will. By some it has been identified with choice, but in- 
correctly, since they are distinguishable both logically and 
chronologically. Logically, choice is the decision of the soul 
as to its preferences, under the actual conditions of the prob- 
lem, for one or the other of two or more correlated causes of 
action, with their several motives, while executive volition is 
the formal putting forth of the actual volition to do or not to 
do. Chronologically, choice precedes executive volition and 
conditions it. In fact, the choice in the concrete instance may 
be made, and yet no executive volition actually follow. Ex- 
ecutive volition may, therefore, be defined to be the ultimate 
and complete expression of the free personality, or true ego, as 
a/ree, i. e., as 2t. first cause, in its relation to its own volitions. 

% II. Psychological Relations of Executive Volition. — 
1. Its relations to choice. — These have already been declared, 
both logically and chronologically ; and yet a further prob- 
lem remains, which must be fairly met, viz. : Is choice the 
cause or only the occasion or condition of executive volition ? 
Here, again, the fundamental principle must be kept squarely 
before the mind — that consciousness is the only competent 
witness in the case, since executive volition, like choice, has 
no analogon in nature, and must, consequently, be known in 
itself, or not known at all. But consciousness not only dis- 
criminates choice from executive volition, both logically and 
chronologically, but it decisively refers both to the conscious 
soul, as to a common cause, and, at the same time, it refuses to 
accept motives as the cause of choice, or choice as the cause 
of executive volition, and thus affirms the soul to be a true 
free ot first cause. The necessitarian theory, on the contrary, 
just as obviously exscinds and excludes all possibility of a 
true self, true ego, or true moral agent, and reduces man to 
the same class or category as a self-acting steam-engine. 

The truth is, a decisive line of demarcation must be 



ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF WILL. 303 

drawn between the objective and subjective elements in tbe 
evolution of the free personality of man. The possible al- 
ternative actions and courses of action open to any individual 
man, with their corresponding motives, ^ro and con^ must be 
assigned to the sphere of the objective, and of secondary 
causation; while choice and executive volition must just as 
decisively be assigned to the sphere of the subjective, or free 
personality, as essential elements of moral agency and of 
free ov primary causation. In other words, in any concrete 
instance, the possible courses of actions and the correspond- 
ing motives are the effects of all the correlated causes, pri- 
mary and secondary, which have resulted in the status quo 
of the personality and its surroundings, while choice and ex- 
ecutive volition are free acts of the personality, uncaused, 
save as self, or the ego, as an uncaused, i. e., as a free first 
cause, causes them. This relation of choice and executive 
volition to each other and to the conscious soul, it is freely 
admitted, is incomprehensible from the human stand-point ; 
but in this respect it only vindicates its right to a place 
among the primitive facts of consciousness, which, whether 
separately or collectively considered, involve corresponding 
elements of mystery which are unexplained, and from the hu- 
man stand-point are unexplainable. 

2. Its relations to physical action. — The relations of voli- 
tion proper to physical action have already been indicated, 
but must here be formally reannounced. It conditions all 
voluntary, and consequently all morally accountable, action. 
In fact, where there is no true volition, there is no true action 
or agency of any kind. ' The converse, however, is not true : 
there may be morally accountable volitions, that is, voluntary 
action, where the physical action corresponding to the volition 
does not or perhaps cannot follow. Many a man is a murderer 
in the court of conscience, or in the sight of God, who has 
never actually lifted his hand against the life of his fellow- 
man. 

At this point, a singular confirmation of the theory of the 
non-causal relation between choice and executive volition 



304: THE WILL: 

emerges in consciousness ; namely, moral accountability at- 
taches to the free choices of the soul in cases in which neither 
an executive volition nor a physical act has followed, as in 
the case referred to by our Saviour, in which He declares 
that he who looks upon a woman to lust after her hath com- 
mited adultery with her already in his heart. Here the act is 
clearly one of voluntary choice, and obviously may occur in 
cases in which either executive volition or physical action 
would be morally impossible. This state of facts is intelligi- 
ble on the hypothesis of a non-causal relation between choice 
and executive volition, but not otherwise. 

It indicates also, incidentally but decisively, the condi- 
tions under which natural desires take on the form of lust, and 
involve personal guilt. This can only be on condition that 
they involve the choice or consent of the will as a free per- 
sonality ; in other words, voluntary/ desire alone is criminal. 

Sec. V. — Summary of Results. 

Our analysis of an act of will may be briefly summed as 
follows : volition is the ultimate act and assertion of self, or 
the ego, as a free personality, and as an intelligent primary 
cause. It postulates, explicitly, as its conscious conditions, 
free or non-necessitated choice, plurality of motives, and al- 
ternativity of possible actions or courses of action. This 
conscious self, or personality, challenges for itself, also in the 
light of consciousness, the character of a voluntary, free, or 
uncaused cause of its own volitions. It thus opposes itself 
decisively, in the character and conditions of its self-conscious 
being, to not-self ov the universe, which responds necessarily 
and universally to the law of physical causation, i. e., to the 
dominion of second causes. 

In executive volition the doctrine of the will culminates, 
and it only remains for us to evolve the general laws and re- 
lations of these elements to each other and to the hierarchy 
of the soul. 



THEORIES OF VOLITION. 305 

CHAPTER lY.— THEORIES OF VOLITION. 
Preliminary Discussion. 

^ I. — Evolution of Generic Theories of Volition.— If th.e 
canon of contradiction be applied logically to the concept of 
liberty as a possible attribute of will or volition, it gives rise 
to two generic theories of volition, viz. : 

1. Theories of absolute fatalism, based upon the negative 
concept of the not-free ; and — 

2. Theories of freedom based upon the generic concept of 
liberty. 

The category of fatalism, or the not-free, may be dis- 
counted at once as unworthy of any practical considera- 
tion whatever, in view of the fact that no intelligent psy- 
chologist of any school whatsoever, at the present day, sus- 
tains or defends any of these theories. 

^ II. — Theories of Freedom classified. — The advocates of 
what is termed, in a vague indefinite sense, freedom of the 
will, agree in little else than in the general term, but may 
be reduced generically to two great classes, viz. : 

1. JVecessitarians, who agree in postulating causal rela- 
tions between two or more of the integrant elements involved 
in every act of the will ; and — 

2. Xibertarimis, who agree in denying any such causal 
relations in the evolution of the phenomena of volition. 

Section I. — Necessitaeian Theories. 

The common principle of all necessitarian theories, viz., 
the affirmation of causal relations between the various ele- 
ments of an act of will, has already been explicitly declared. 
It only remains to examine some of the discrete representa- 
tive forms under which they have appeared. 

^ I. — First Necessitarian Theory. — This may be briefly 
and distinctly characterized, perhaps, in the light of preced- 
ing discussions, under two general statements, which suffi- 
ciently distinguish its peculiarities : 



306 THE WILL: 

1. It distinctly postulates causal relations between motives 
and choice. In other words, it affirms motives to be the cause 
of choice and of volitions (for the theory practically, but 
decisively, indentifies choice and volition) in th6 same sense 
that the weight placed in the scale is the cause of the sink- 
ing of the scale-beam. The relation between them is, there- 
fore, one of absolute oiecessity, and must, consequently, be 
invariable. In fact, it recognizes but three elements in an 
act of will, Yiz.y possible actions j motives, and choice, or voli- 
tion, and it distinctly predicates necessity under the law of 
absolute causation of each element taken separately. It 
affirms that the possible actions, or courses of action, open to 
any man at any instant of his life, are the necessary resultants 
of an inexorable chain of causation running back to God; 
that the motives present to his mind were also in like man- 
ner predetermined, and that these motives, in turn, predeter- 
mine or necessitate choice or volition; but — 

2. It postulates freedom, or liberty, as an attribute of 
will, on the ground solely that man is free to will as he chooses ; 
or, in other words, as the balance is free to yield to the 
heaviest weight, so the will is free to yield to the power of 
the preponderating motive, and it bases moral responsibility 
and moral accountability upon this illusory freedom. We 
say illusory freedom; for, in this sense of the word liberty, 
the leaf or the apple that falls, the broken wood that drifts 
helplessly on the waves, the planet that circles through the 
heavens — in a word, all material existences whatsoever are 
free, and might with equal justice be held morally accountable 
for their actions. Nor is it at all to the purpose that the ob- 
jection is interposed that man is intelligent and the universe 
is not. That intelligence, as was decisively shown in the 
case of the man falling from the building upon the head of 
his fellow-man, does not and cannot, in this chain of invaria- 
ble causation, alter or change, in the slightest degree, the pre- 
determined result ; on the contrary, intelligence itself is but 
one of the inevitable links in the resistless chain of causation, 
and can no more change it than the inertia of the planets can 



THEORIES OF VOLITION. 307 

change their orbits or stop their revolutions. No man ever 
did or ever can hold himself responsible, morally, for a con- 
sciously necessitated act ; and, so far as the moral relations 
are concerned, it is a matter of indifference whether the phys- 
ical act is necessitated without voUtio7i, or the volition 
necessitated without choice, or the choice and the volition 
necessitated in and through the ^notives. In none of these 
cases is there any real liberty or true moral accountability. 
The freedom of the will postulated by this theory is, therefore, 
wholly illusory and deceptive. 

^ II. — Second Necessitarian Theory. — 1. Its essential pos- 
tulates. — This theory formally analyzes an act of will into 
the same general elements that are recognized in this trea- 
tise; but it implicitly introduces other elements not indi- 
cated in its formal analysis, chief among which is the 
power of inclination. It denies any causal relation between 
motives and choice, but postulates such relations between 
inclination and choice, and admits that our inclinations are 
necessitated by conditions over which the soul has, and can 
have, no power ; in other words, our inclinations are necessi- 
tated, and not free or voluntary, states or affections of our 
being. 

2. Its theory of liberty. — This, stated in the language 
of one of its earliest and ablest advocates, is : " My will is 
free when I can will to do just what I please," and he adds, 
first, that " mere strength of inclination can by no means 
impair the freedom of the will ; " and, second, " it is evident, 
furthermore, that freedom has nothing to do with the source 
of my inclinations, any more than with their strength. It 
makes no difference what causes my preference, or whether 
any thing causes it." Again, " It is of no consequence how 
I came hy that inclination or disposition.^"* Again, "The 
view now taken leaves it open, and quite in the power of. 
Providence so to shape circumstances, guide events, and so 
to array and to bring to bear on the mind of man motives 
and inducements to any given cause of action as virtually 
to control and determine his conduct by controlling and de- 



308 THE WILL: 

termining his inclinations, and so his choice ; while, at the 
same time, the man is left perfectly free to put forth such 
volitions as he pleases, and to do as he likes. There can he 
no higher liberty than this.'''* 

Now, with all due respect for this learned author, I sub- 
mit that in this theory we have only our old friend Monsieur 
Tonson come again. That which he calls inclination^ Ed- 
wards would have called motives^ and correctly too, for they 
must be included decisively under the general head of desires^ 
which are assuredly, on any rational hypothesis^ true motives. 
The learned author himself, in fact, expressly includes our 
affections and desires under his pet term inclinations, and, if 
these be not motives to action, it is difficult to imagine what 
he would include under the name of motives. The reader of 
his book can hardly avoid the suspicion that he has never dis- 
cretely evolved the relations of his so-called inclinations to 
his recognized (but undefined) motives. The truth is, his 
theory is identical in principle, if not in form, with the one 
previously noted. He postulates implicitly, if not explicitly, 
that choice is invariably as the inclination, and that volition 
is invariably as the choice, or, in other words, he distinctly 
affirms that choice necessitates volition, that inclination ne- 
cessitates choice, and that inclination is itself pnly the effect 
of an antecedent chain of necessary causation. Is it asked : 
" Where, then, does liberty exist ? " His answer is ex- 
plicit : " The will is free, because man is free to will as he 
chooses, no matter how he comes by his choice.^'' This, it need 
hardly be added, is not liberty, but necessity ; not freedom, but 
destiny. Here, as before, there is no break or hiatus in the 
chain of causation ; volition is but au effect, in an unbroken 
chain, of secondary causation, at the head of which he for- 
mally places Providence, i. e., of course (for he is a Chris- 
tian theist), God. He forgets, however, to apply his pecu- 
liar theory of free volition, as he should have done, to the 
Divine Being, and thus test its truth by such a magnifying 
process. If it is true at all, it must be universally true, and, 
therefore, true of God as well as of man. The Divine will. 



THEORIES OF VOLITION. 309 

consequently, must respond, like the human, to this absolute 
law of causation and to the Divine inclination ; and is, there- 
fore, only a link in an endless chain of blind causation that 
antecedes alike all intelligence and all volition. But it is idle, 
to follow such a thought further. God, conceived as acting 
under necessitated volitions, is no God^ but a inyth or a 
chimera ; and thus the reductio ad ahsurdum is complete. 

^ III. Third Necessitarian Theory. — A third theory some- 
times emerges in this connection that, perhaps, merits a pass- 
ing notice. This predicates necessity of all of the four 
successive elements of an act of volition, considered either 
severally or collectively, recognizing no formal or actual ele- 
ment of liberty in any of them, but it nevertheless predi- 
cates liberty of the human will, on the ground that it is free 
to put forth a nisus, or effort, to realize in physical action its 
predetermined volitions. It does not, however, affirm that 
any physical act whatever necessarily results, since a stroke 
of paralysis or other physical impediment may neutralize the 
volition, and prevent the actual putting forth of any physical 
force whatsoever. It is a waste of time to discuss this theory 
here, for, apart from the fact that simply to state it, intelligi- 
bly, is to refute it, the fact is obtrusive that, whether true or 
false in fact, the freedom it postulates is in no conceivable 
sense freedom of the will. 

The three theories noted above have been stated in gen- 
eric or representative forms, as expressing substantially the 
views of the various schools of necessitarians rather than 
those of individuals. In their ultimate principle they are 
identical, since they all affirm that human volitions are ne- 
cessitated acts, mere links in the chain of predetermined 
causation. The fact has not, perhaps, been as clearly evolved 
in this controversy as it should have been, that the will must 
decisively be classed either as a caused or as a causal power, 
i. e., either as ajirst, or primary, that is, again, as a real cause, 
or else as a secondary cause purely ; i. e., as alternatively 
ejff^ect and cause in the chain of natural causation, in precisely 
the same sense that any given link in a chain cable is effect 



3iO THE WILL: 

in its relations to the link that precedes it, and is cause in its 
relations to that which succeeds it. 

The distinction here taken is radical, and far-reaching in 
its influence, involving all our conceptions of God as well as 
man. If motives be the cause and volition be the effect in 
man, the same relation must exist in God, and His Omnipo- 
tent Will is reduced at once to the rank of a secondary cause 
dependent upon antecedent causes, and absolutely necessitated 
by them ; and thus all freedom disappears from thought, and 
we come back to the scheme of absolute fatalism, which the 
world rejects as unworthy of consideration, simply because 
it contradicts the human consciousness in its most decisive 
affirmations. The truth is, all forms of necessitarianism be- 
long logically to the category of the not-free^ i. e., to the 
category oi fate, or destiny, and our original classification 
decisively demands amendment. There can be no other al- 
ternative : either will, as the representative of self, the ego, or 
true personality, is a free, primary, or first cause, and hence 
lies outside of the chain of secondary causation ; or else it is 
merely a link in that chain, and is no more a cause than a 
lever is d cause of motion. The lever is powerless to act 
save as it is acted upon, and the will is just as powerless, on 
any necessitarian hypothesis whatever. The fact must here 
be distinctly kept in view, that all theories of the relations 
of motives, inclinations, etc., etc., to choice and volition are 
just as applicable to the Divine as to the human will. Any 
theory, consequently, which necessitates human volition, or, 
in other words, subjects the soul of man to the dominion of 
necessity, reduces the will of God, and consequently God 
Himself, at once to the rank of a mere link in an endless 
chain of secondary causation ; and thus theism proper dis- 
appears, and pantheism is the hopeless result. The only pos- 
sible escape from this dUemma would seem to be a rejection 
of our initial identification of the will, as such, with the true 
personality, self, or ego ; but on what principle this could even 
be attempted is not apparent, since the very essence of true 
personality seems to inhere in its power of free or voluntary 



i 



THEORIES OF VOLITION. 3J1 

action. There would seem, therefore, to be no escape from 
an absolute pantheistic fatalism, save by the entire rejection 
of all schemes of a necessitated volition, and the assertion 
that will is a caws a? power, i. e., that it is the uncaused cause 
of its own volitions. 

Sec. n. — ^Libertarian Theories. 

It is scarcely necessary, in an elementary work like the 
present, to individualize the various libertarian theories which 
have emerged during the prolonged controversies in refer- 
ence to the true doctrines of the will. However much they 
may vary in details^ they all involve certain essential postu- 
lates, which practically identify them in principle and in 
their moral relations. 

^ I. — Their Essential Postulates. — 1. An original free 
personality the uncaused cause of all things^ i. e., God. — 
To Him they ascribe true freedom of the will, i. e., they 
affirm the entire absence or non-existence of all causation and 
all causal relations whatsoever, until His Divine will put 
forth causal power or energy in an act of volition. In other 
words, libertarians postulate a Divine volition as absolutely, 
both logically and chronologically^ the frst act, movement, or 
link, in the chain of causation. They will not accept or ac- 
knowledge any causal relation whatsoever between motives 
and choice, inclinations and choice, or choice and executive 
volition. Recognizing fully the facts of the Divine intelli- 
gence and sensibilities, and coordinating them with the Di- 
vine will, they identify the last, specifically, with the free 
personal consciousness, and affirm it to be the ultimate seat 
or source of power — the beginning of, and not a link in, the 
chain of secondary causation. In yet other words, they 
place God above, and out of, the chain of secondary causa- 
tion ; and do not recognize Him as shut up within it, and as 
controlled by it, as are the divinities of necessitarianism and 
of pantheism. Here the differences between the rival theo- 
ries are decisive and obtrusive. God, as conceived by liber- 
tarians, is an absolute cause, and His volitions are, in no 



312 THE WILL: 

sense, necessitated by inclinations or motives. God, as con- 
ceived logically^ in accordance with necessitarian hypotheses, 
acts in accordance with the decisions of His own will, it is 
true, but none the less upon decisions which He Himself 
neither causes nor makes, but which are caused or made by 
causative powers or energies acting upon the .Divine will 
from without ; in other words, the Divine will is a secondary, 
and not 2^. first, cause; but the will and the personality must 
be identified strictly from the psychological stand-point : 
hence the Divine personality, on this hypothesis, is a second- 
ary, and not a, or rather the, first cause. 

Finally, God, as conceived by logical pantheism, is neither 
free nor intelligent, save as He attains to freedom and intel- 
ligence in this or that secondary personality ; hence the Di- 
vine personality is not a reality, hut an illusion ; and God 
Himself is but a figment of the imagination, representing 
either — 

First. The mathematical sum total of all existence; 
hence, possessing neither volition, iutelligence, nor freedom ; 
or — 

Second. He is the conceptual or ideal representative of 
force ; or, in other words, a kind of lay figure introduced into 
the problem of the self-evolution of force, merely to satisfy 
the illusions of the imagination. 

This theory, as before noted, must be ranked under the 
head of absolute fatalism, or the not-iree, as it ofiers no con- 
ceivable basis for any postulate of freedom whatever. 

2. Libertarians postulate the existence of secondary ' or 
created free personalities. — This postulate is based, deci- 
sively and directly, upon the first, and presupposes it. It 
accepts, literally, the declaration of the Holy Scriptures, 
that " God created man in His own image," and this image, 
whatever else it may or may not include, must obviously 
include the concept oi Xhe free personality of Jehovah, which 
is that which peculiarly discriminates Him from the universe 
which He has called into being. We must here assume, 
both logically and rationally, that the human personality is 



THEORIES OF VOLITION. 313 

the type of which the Divine personality is the antitype. If 
volition is necessitated in the one, it must be necessitated in 
the other also ; if it be controlled by inclination, circum- 
stances, or motives, in the one, it must be in the other also. 
So, on the contrary, if the will is the free or uncaused cause 
of its own volitions in the one, it must also be in the other. 
The existence of secondary or created free personalities is a 
fundamental postulate of moral freedom and moral responsi- 
bility. 

3. Libertarians postulate volition as a causal^ and not a 
caused, act. — This is a simple corollary of the preceding 
principle, and is involved in the personal consciousness of 
liberty which all men enjoy. There is no other feeling, im- 
pulse, or consciousness of the soul, more universal or more 
familiar than this. You may bind the body, shackle the 
limbs, paralyze the tongue, blind the eyes, and seal up the 
ears of your fellow-man, but, none the less, his soul will assert 
its liberty. "My will," he cries, "is my own, that you 
cannot hindP Ask a man why he weeps, he will answer, 
"I suffer, and I cannot help weeping." Ask him why he 
laughs, and he will answer, " I cannot help laughing ; " and 
so of other forms of mental action. But now ask him why 
he willed to do thus and so, and he will ner)er answer, nor 
thinh of answering, " I could not help willing it." It would 
be safe to say that no sane man ever, honestly, made such a 
statement ; and this fact is to the last degree significant, as 
it is the decisive expression and testimony of human con- 
sciousness as to the unqualified freedom of the human will in 
putting forth its own causal volitions. 

^ II. — Proofs of the Libertarian Theory. — Libertarians 
appeal, in proof of the truth of their several theories — 

1. To the testimony of consciousness. — This has already 
been given, again and again, under a variety of forms, in the 
course of our investigations. It is again introduced here, dis- 
cretely, in order chiefly to introduce one significant fact, of 
the nature of unconscious testimony, on the part of necessita- 
rians, to the truth of the libertarian theory and the falsity 
14 



314: THE WILL: 

of their own, viz. : while necessitarians uniformly appeal to 
consciousness in proof of the general {unlocated and unde- 
fined) freedom of the will, and man's consequent moral 
responsibility, they do not even pretend to support their 
special theories, by locating and defining that freedom by 
the direct testimony of the personal consciousness, which is 
the only competent witness in the case ; but they sustain, or 
endeavor to sustain them, on other and independent grounds. 
This fact — and its truth is patent to every student familiar 
with the literature of the subject— is exceedingly significant. 
The attorney who ofiers secondary evidence in a court of jus- 
tice, where direct and primary evidence is within his reach, 
discredits his own case and insures his own defeat. If men 
were conscious of any causal relation between motives and 
choice, or inclination and choice, or between either or both, 
and volition, that consciousness would be final and decisive 
proof of the truth of the corresponding necessitarian theory ; 
that no such testimony is adduced, is decisive proof that 
none such exists. But to say that none such .exists, is sim- 
ply to affirm that self, or the ego, is consciously free^ and not 
subject to any causal influence whatsoever in the acts of 
choosing and willing. Again, no sane man perhaps lives, 
who cannot recall instances, in his own personal experience, 
Gipure autocracy of will, in which he found himself utterly 
unable to account, even to himself, for the volitions which he 
actually put forth — cases in which the volition responded 
neither to the motives actually presented, nor to the incli- 
nations felt, but seemed to be solely the expression of the 
caprice of an autocratic will. It will be said, perhaps, that 
this is irrational and incomprehensible ; that it may be, and 
yet, as a fact, it is undeniably true, and must be accounted 
for like any other fact of consciousness. The writer is con- 
fident that, in stating the fact that, personally, he is often 
surprised at his own actual volitions under the conscious con- 
ditions under which he puts them forth, he does not express 
a fact peculiar to himself, but one common to humanity ; and 
one, moreover, which is decisive in its bearings upon the 



THEORIES OF VOLITIOX. 315 

problem of the autocracy or causality of will in its relations 
to inclinations, motives, choice, and volition. 

To the sophism that "we are not conscious of freedom 
in volition, or, as some incorrectly express it, of the power of 
contrary choice^'' two decisive replies are opposed, viz. : 

First. That causal necessity^ as a condition precedent of 
volition, is a positive^ and not a negative^ fact ; and it is a 
fact, moreover, of which every man is fully conscious in the 
spheres of the intellect and of the sensibilities, and is ex- 
pressed familiarly in words like these : " I cannot help think- 
ing thus and so ; and I cannot help feeling as I do." N'o 
man cavils at or discredits such statements, because he is 
conscious of like necessity in his own intellectual and sensi- 
tive states. But let a man put in the plea in court, " I could 
not help willing to murder that man," and judge, jury, and 
community, libertarians, and necessitarians, would laugh to 
scorn the plea, unless the counsel for the criminal conjoined to 
it the additional plea of insanity. But, wherefore this de- 
cisive discrimination between the intellect and sensibilities 
on the one side, and the will on the other? The answer 
must be simply and decisively : " Because men are conscious 
of compulsion — necessity — causation — in the spheres of the 
intellect and the sensibilities, and are equally conscious of 
freedom in choice and volition." 

Second. Men are conscious^ in fact ^ of potential as well as 
of actual power. — ^In reference to a thousand things in hu- 
man experience, this is recognized familiarly as an unques- 
tioned fact. Nay, more, it is familiarly recognized in refer- 
ence to volition. If I, as an individual, neglect or refuse to 
do an imperative duty, I am assailed, by necessitarian and 
libertarian alike, with the condemnatory question, " Why 
did you not do your duty ? " To this query it would be a 
final and decisive answer {if only it were consciously true), 
" I could not." Yet if I had had no consciousness of power 
to do it, i. e., to put forth a volition to do my duty, I would 
be fully justified in answering, "I could not." Had I been 
chained, hand and foot, that answer would have been the only 



316 THE WILL: 

proper one. Is it, then, any less true, less appropriate, or less 
proper, if God, in His providence, have so chained my will 
tliat I cannot put forth the volition to do my duty, or, in 
other words, that I cannot put forth any other volition 
than the one I actually do ? Which slavery is the most 
complete and most degrading, that which chains the body 
and leaves the soul free, or that which enslaves both soul and 
body, hy enslaving the will to the power of inclination or 
motives, which are in turn predetermined by causes that the 
soul did not originate and cannot modify ? Will it be said 
that the last is least painful, because it is unconscious ? I 
answer : It is most degrading, because it takes away the last 
remnant of conscious manhood. 

This consciousness of freedom in volition, or of power to 
will otherwise than I actually do in any given case, is not 
only not a delusion, but it is an absolute condition precedent 
of the conscious sense of moral responsibility and moral ac- 
countability that lives in every sane human soul. 

2. The testimony of language. — All the forms of human 
language, whether popular or scientific, accommodate them- 
selves spontaneously to the libertarian theory of freedom of 
the will. But forms of language are obviously the expres- 
sion, either — 

{a) Of the natural elements, tendencies, or impulses of 
humanity; or — 

(5) Of its actual positive beliefs, true or false. 

If, therefore, any tendency in language or form of ex- 
pression is found to be practically universal and independent 
of race, climate, and culture, it may fairly be taken as the ex- 
pression of an original element or impulse of man as man ; 
if, on the contrary, it is found to be local in time and place, it 
must be ascribed to the influence of accidental causes. But 
all the forms of universal language point decisively to free- 
dom of the will as the popular faith of humanity ; and he 
would be a daring, nay, more, a reckless philologist, who 
would venture to appeal to the testimony of human language 
in proof of a necessitated volition. 



THEORIES OF VOLITION. 317 

3. The testimony of civil government. — This has already 
been quoted decisively in favor of the general doctrine of 
human freedom, but may be quoted just as decisively in fa- 
vor of the libertarian theory of volition. Every civil govern- 
ment, in its enforcement of criminal law against crime, as 
theft or murder, looks not merely to the outward physical 
act, but to the mental act also ; and, if a plea of partial in- 
sanity can be plausibly sustained, will at once acquit the 
thief or manslayer of guilt, on the ground of his m.oral ina- 
bility not to do the act^ or not to commit the crime. The de- 
fence, in such cases, is distinctly that of a necessitated choice^ 
or volition ; and, where this plea is fairly sustained, it must 
be accepted in any righteous human court as an absolute plea 
in bar of judgment. Yet every necessitarian theory of the 
will postulates, m every case of voluntary action whatsoever^ 
precisely the conditions necessary to justify and sustain the 
plea of moral inability in a criminal court. And yet necessi- 
tarians, in full view of these facts, most inconsistently affirm 
man's moral responsibility for his necessitated volitions. 

4. The testimony of the moral nature. — This is but a 
counterpart, clear and decisive, of the testimony of civil gov- 
ernment responding to the same principles and resulting in 
identical conclusions. All government, in fact, appeals to 
and is based upon man's consciousness of moral responsibility 
and moral accountability. But this consciousness of moral 
responsibility in the human soul has, and can have, no exist- 
ence, in fact, apart from the corresponding consciousness of 
freedom of choice and of volition. Place a man under abso- 
lute duress, and, though you may wring his soul with anguish 
in view of the evil resulting from his enforced action, to which 
his will neither assented nor consented, you cannot carry 
home to his conscience the slightest sense of guilt for an ac& 
to which he never assented^ although perchance you may have 
used his physical powers to accomplish your evil purposes. 

Conscious freedom of volition or action is an absolute 
condition, precedent of conscious moral responsibility and 
moral accountabilitv. The two do not and cannot exist 



318 THE WILL: 

apart from each other in the human soul. All necessitarians 
recognize this fact, and hence the attempt, in each of the three 
theories noted, to interpolate somewhere, in the chain of 
necessary causation, an element of freedom, in fact or in 
form, upon which this consciousness of moral responsibility 
may fasten. How futile these efforts have been, the preced- 
ing discussions have, perhaps, sufficiently indicated. The 
truth is, however, and it should be kept sharply in view, 
that logically there are but two possible theories, viz. : The 
will is either a free primary or first cause, the uncaused cause 
of its own volitions ; or, it is but an effect, or link, in the 
chain of secondary causation — the reign of necessity is con- 
sequently absolute, and all freedom whatsoever is excluded. 
As between these contradictory extremes there is no possible 
mean ; and the simple alternative theories open to us are — 
1. The autocracy of will as a free primary or first cause, i. e., 
the uncaused cause of its own volitions ; or, 2. The doctrine 
of a necessitated volition, excluding all real liberty, and ulti- 
mating, logically, in an absolute fatalism that engulfs and 
overwhelms alike man, the universe, and God. 



CONCLUSION 



Ix the doctrines of the will psychology culminates, and 
it only remains for the thoughtful student, who has intelli- 
gently attained to this centre of soul-life, to review from that 
stand-point all the processes of thought and feeling. It is 
one of the necessary evils that inhere in all human processes, 
that we must needs study, in detail, that which, properly, 
can only be comprehended in its complex unity ; for the soul, 
in its physico-spiritual earth-life, is, after all, a unit, and its in- 
tellect, sensibilities, and will, are but the multiple manifesta- 
tions of this unique unity, or individuality. It is not enough, 
therefore, that the student of psychology should comprehend 
the different faculties of the soul, their processes and prod- 
ucts, severally ; he must also grasp them clearly and deci- 
sively in their correlation and coordination with each other. 
He who would intelligently comprehend a locomotive-engine, 
must not only study all its parts, boiler, cylinder, piston, 
pump, connecting-rods, levers, etc., etc., in detail, until he 
has mastered the forms, the uses, and the final causes of 
each, but he must study them in their coordination and cor- 
relation to each other in the perfect engine, as it stands in its 
massive beauty upon the side-track. Nay, more, he must go 
further. The anatomy and the physiology of the engine will 
not suffice ; he will fail, after all, to comprehend it, if he ceases 
his investigations at this point : he must study it as well, 
standing beside its engineer on the trembling, heaving foot- 



320 CONCLUSION. 

board, as it speeds on its fiery track, a thing of life and power, 
animated by the spirits of steam and fire imprisoned within 
its vitals. Even so the student of psychology has but be- 
gun his work when he has exhausted the science of the anat- 
omist and physiologist, in the study of the physical organ- 
ism, and when with the true psychologist he has studied on© 
by one the faculties of the human soul, until he comprehends, 
severally, their natures, their processes, and their products ; 
he must also take his place beside the will, the autocratic 
sovereign and engineer of this mighty human * engine, and 
with it go forth to life's stern battle-fields, and study the 
soul as it lives and thinks, feels and acts, under the deepest, 
strongest, and most intense influences that may evoke its 
wondrous energies. 

In other words, the earnest student of psychology must 
comprehend that his science is to be studied, not so much in 
books as in the depths of consciousness, and not so much in 
schools as in the busy haunts of man. Practical men (self- 
called and self-styled) may laugh to scorn his earnest re- 
searches as idle dreams, but none the less is it true that 
psychology is the basal science in the hierarchy of the sci- 
ences, underlying and vitalizing .all the rest, and he knows 
nothing as he should who does not know himself. Men may 
excuse themselves from the study of other sciences on the 
score of want of books, of apparatus, of necessary facilities, 
of opportunity, etc., etc., but human nature is an ever open 
book, whose pages are spread out alike before the prince and 
the peasant, the child and the philosopher, and is filled with the 
richest lessons of instruction, indispensable to men in all the 
ranks, relations, and conditions of life ; and, if these pages 
shall stimulate the zeal and smooth the pathway of a single 
earnest student, they will not have been written in vain. 



THE END. 



UST OF WOEKS 
PUBLISHED BY D. APPLETON & CO., 

549 & 551 Broadway, New York. 



A Descriptive Catalogue, with full titles and prices, may "be lial^ 
gratuitously on 



About's Eoman Question. 
Adams' Boys at Home. 

Edgar Clifton. 

Addison's Spectator. 6 vols. 
Adler's German and English Diction- 
ary. 

Abridged do. do. do. 

German Eeader. 

" Literature. 

Ollendorff for Learning German. 

Key to the Exercises. 

Iphigenia in Tauris. 

After Icebergs with a Painter. 
Agnel's Book of Chess. 
Agailar's Home Influence. 

Mother's Eecompense. 

Days of Bruce. 2 vols. 

Home Scenes. 

Woman's Friendship. 

Women of Israel. 2 vols. 

Vale of Cedars. 

Ahn's French Method. 

Spanish Grammar. 

A Key to same. 

German Method. 1 vol. 

Or, separately — First Course. 1 
vol. 



Aids to Faith. A series of Essays, by 

Various Writers. 
Aikin's British Poets. From Chaucer 

to the Present Time. 3 vols. 
Album for Postage Stamps. 
Albums of Foreign Galleries; in 7 

folios. 
Alden's Elements of Intellectual Phi- 
losophy. 
Alison's Miscellaneous Essays. 
Allen's Mechanics of Nature. 
Alsop's Charms of Fancy. 
Amelia's Poems. 

American Poets (Gems from the). 
iimerican Eloquence. A Collection 

of Speeches and Addresses. 2 

vols. 
American System of Education : 

1. Hand-Book of Anglo-Saxon 

Eoot-Words. 
g. Hand-Book of Anglo-Saxon 

Derivatives. 



American System of Education : 

3. Hand-Book of Engrafted Words. 
Anderson's Mercantile Correspond* 

ence. 
Andrews' New French Instructor. 

A Key to the above. 

Annals of San Francisco. 

Antisell on Coal Oils. 

Anthon's Law Student. 

Appletons' New American Cyclopsedi* 

of Useful Knowledge. 16 vols. 
Annual Cyclo])S8dia, and Eesister 

of Important Events for^'lSSl, 

'62, '63, '64, '65. 
Cyclopedia of Biography, For- 
eign and American. __ 

Cyclopaedia of Drawing. 

Tbe same in parts: 

Topographical Drawing. 

Perspective and Geometrical 
Drawing. 

Shading and Shadows. 

Drawing Instruments and their 
Uses. 

Architectural Drawing and De- 
sign. 

Mechanical Drawing and Design. 
Dictionary of Mechanics and En- 
gineering. 2 large vols. 

Eailway Guide. 

American Illustrated Guide 

Book. 1 vol. 
Do. do., separately : 

1. Eastern and Middle States, 
and British Provinces. 1 vol. 

2. Southern and Western States, 
and the Territories. 1 vol. 

Companion Hand-Book of Travel. 

Arabian Nights' Entertainments. 
Arnold's (S. G.) History of the State 

of Ehode Island. 2 vols. 
Arnold's (Dr.) History of Eome. 

Modern History. 

Arnold's Classical Series : 

First Latin Book. 

First and Second Latin Book and 

Grammar. 

Latin Prose Composition. 

Cornelius Nepos. 

First Greek Book. 

Greek Prose Composition Book, 1. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATION'S. 



Arnold's Greek Prose Composition 
Book, 2. ^ 

Greek Eeading Book, 

Arthur's (T. S.) Tired of Housekeeping. 

Arthur's (W.) Successful Merchant, 

At Anchor; or, A Story of our Civil 
War. 

Atlantic Library, 7 vols, in case. 

Attache in Madrid. 

Aunt Fanny's Story Book. 

Mitten Series. 6 vols, in case. 

Night Cap Series. 6 vols, in case. 

Badois' English Grammar for French- 
men. 

A Key to the above. 

Baine's Manual of Composition and 

Ehetoric. 
Bakewell's Great Facts 
Baldwin's Flush Times. 

Party Leaders. 

Balmanno's Pen and Pencil. 
Bank Law of the United States. 
Barrett's Beauty for Ashes. 
Bartlett's U. S. Explorations. 2 vols 

Cheap edition. 2 vols, in 1. 

Barwell's Good in Every Thing 
Bassnett's Theory of Storms. 
Baxley's West Coast of America and 

Hawaiian Islands. 
Beach's Pelayo. An Epic. 
Beall (John T.), Trial of. 
Beauties of Sacred Literature. 
Beauties of Sacred Poetry. 
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works. 2 

vols. 
Belem's Spanish Phrase Book. 
Bello's Spanish Grammar (in Spanish). 
Benedict's Run Through Europe, 
Benton on the Dred Scott Case. 

Thirty Years' View. 2 vols. 

Debates of Congress. 16 vols. 

Bertha Percy. By Margaret Field. 

12mo. 
Bertram's Harvest of the Sea. Eco- 
nomic and mtural History of 
Fishes. 
Bessie and Jessie's Second Book. 
Beza's Novum Testamentum. 
Bibles in aU styles of bindings and 

various prices. 
Bible Stories, in Bible Language. 
Black's General Atlas of the World. 
Bloomfield's Farmer's Boy. 
Blot's What to Eat, and How to Cook 

it. 
Blue and Gold Poets. 6 vols, in case. 
Boise's Greek Exercises. 

First Three Books of Xenophon's 

Anabasis. 
Bojesen's Greek and Eoman Antiqui- 
ties. 
Book of Common Prayer. Various 

prices. 
Boone's Life and Adventures. 



Bourne's Catechism of the Steam En- 
gine. 

Hand-Book of the Steam Engine. 

-—Treatise on the Steam Engine 
Boy's Book of Modern Travel 
- — Own Toy Maker 
Bradford's Peter the Great. 

^lt?i^K^ ^'^^''y.V I>o«Kl£;ss Farm. 
Bradley's (Chas.) Sermon's. 
Brady's Christmas Dream. 
Breakfast, Dinner, and Tea. 
British Poets. From Chaucer to the 

, Present Time. 3 large vols. 
British Poets. Cabinet Edition. 15 

vols. 
Brooks' Ballads and Translations. 
Brown, Jones, and Eobinson's Tour. 
Bryan's English Grammar for Ger. 

mans. 
Bryant & Stratton's Commercial Law, 
Bryant's Poems, Illustrated. 

Poems. 2 vols. • 

Thirty Poems. 

Poems. Blue and Gold. 

Letters from Spain. 

Buchanan's Administration. 
Buckle's Civilization in England, a 

vols. 

Essays. 

Bunyan's Divine Emblems. 
Burdett's Chances and Changes. 

Never Too Late. 

Burgess' Photograph Manual. 12mo. 
Burnett (James E.) on the Ihirty- 

nine Articles. 
Burnett (Peter H.), The Path which 

led a Protestant Lawyer to the 

Catholic Church. 
Burnouf s Gramatica Latica. 
Burns' (Jabez) Cyclopaedia of Sermons. 
Burns' (Eobert) Poems. 
Burton's Cyclopaedia of Wit and Hu- 
mor. 2 vols. 
Butler's Martin Van Buren. 
Butler's (F.) Spanish Teacher. 
Butler's (S.) Hudibras. 
Butler's (T. B.) Guide to the Weather, 
Butler's (Wm. Allen) Two Millions. 
Byron Gallery. The Gallery of By- 
ron Beauties. 

Poetical Works. 

Life and Letters. 

Works. Illustrated. 

Coeleb's Laws and Practice of Whist. 
Caesar's Commentaries. 
Caird's Prairie Farming. 
Calhoun's Works and Speeches. 6 vols. 
Campbell's (Tbos.) Gertrude of Wy- 
oming, 

Poems, 

Campbell (Judge) on Shakespeare. 
Canot, Life of Captain. 
Carlyle's (Thomas) Essays. 
Carreno's Manual of Politenesi. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



Carreno's Compendio del Manual de 
Urbanidad, 

Casseday's Poetic Lacon. 

Cavendish's Laws of Whist. 

Cervantes' Don Quixote, in Spanish. 

Don Quixote, in English. 

Cesar L'Histoire de Jules, par S. M. 
I. Napoleon III. Vol. I., with 
Maps and Portrait. (French.) 
Cheap Edition, without Maps and 

Portrait. 
Maps and Portrait, for cheap edi- 
tion, in envelopes. 

Champlin's English Grammar. 

Greek Grammar. 

Chase on the Constitution and Canons. 

Chaucer's Poems. 

Chevalier on Gold. 

Children's Holidays. 

Child's First History. 

Choquet's French Composition. 

• French Conversation. 

Cicei'o de Officiis. 

Chittenden's Keport of the Peace Con- 
vention. 

Select Orations. 

Clarke's (D. 8.) Scripture Promises. 

Clarke's (Mrs. Cowden) Iron Cousin. 

Clark's (H. J.) Mind in Nature. 

Cleaveland and Backus' Villas and Cot- 
Cleveland's* (H. W. S.) Hints to Eitle- 
men. 

Cloud Crystals. A Snow Flake Album. 

Cobb's (J. B.) Miscellanies. 

Coe's Spanish Drawing Cards. 10 parts. 

Coo's Drawing Cards. 10 parts. 

Colenso on the Pentateuch. 2 vols. 

On the Romans. 

Coleridge's Poems. 

Collins' Amoor. 

Collins'XT. W.) Humanics. 

Collet's Dramatic French Eeader. 

Comings' Physiology. 

Companion to Physiology. 

Comment on Parle a Paris. 

Congreve's Comedy. 

Continental Library. 6 vols, in case. 

Cooke's Life of Stonewall Jackson. 

Cookery, by an American Lady. 

Cooley's Cyclopajdia of Kecelpts. 

Cooper's Mount Vernon. 

Copley's Early Friendship. 

Poplar Grove. 

Cornell's First Steps in Geography. 

Primary Geography. 

Intermediate Geography. 

Grammar School Geography. 

High School Geography and Atlas. 

High School Geography. 

" " Atlas. 

Map Drawing. 12 maps in case. 

Outline Maps, with Key. 13 maps 

in portfolio. 

-* Or, the Key, separately. 



Cornwall on Music. 

-Correlation and Conservation of 

Forces. 
Cortez' Life and Adventures. 
Cotter on the Mass and Eubrics. 
Cottin's Elizabeth ; or, the Exiles of 

Siberia. 
Cousin Alice's Juveniles. 
Cousin Carrie's Sun Rays. 

Keep a Good Heart. 

Cousin's Modci-n Philosophy. 2 vols, 

On the True and Beautiful. 

Only Romance. 

Coutan's French Poetry. 
Covell's English Grammar. 
Cowles' Exchange Tables, 
Cowper's Homer's Iliad. 

Poems. 



Cox's Eight Years in Congress, from 
1S57 to 1865. 

Coxe's Christian Ballads. 

Creasy on the English Constitution. 

Crisis (The). 

Crosby's (A.) Geometry. 

Crosby's (H.) (Edipus Tyrannus. 

Crosby's (W. H.) Quintus Curtius 
Rufus. 

Crowe's Linny Lockwood. 

Curry's Volunteer Book. 

Cust's Invalid's Book. 

Cyclopsedia of Commercial and Busi- 
ness Anecdotes. 2 vols. 

D'Abrantes' Memoires of Napoleon. 

2 vols. 
Dairyman's (The) Daughter. 
Dana's Household Poetry. 
Darwin's Origin of Species. 
Dante's Poems. 
Dasent's Popular Tales from the 

Norse. 
Davenport's Christian Unity and its 

Recovery. 
Dawson's Archaia. 
De Belem's Spanish Phrase-Book. 
De Fivas' Elementary French Eeader. 

Classic French Reader. 

De Foe's Robinson Crusoe. 
De Girardin's Marguerite. 

Stories of an Old Maid. 



De Hart on Courts Martial. 

De L'Ardeche's History of Napoleon. 

De Peyrac's Comment on Parle. 

De Stiicl's Corinne, ou L'ltalie. 

De Veitelle's Mercantile Dictionary. 

De Vere's Spanish Grammar. 

Dew's Historical Digest. 

Dickens's (Charles) Works. Original 
Illustrations. 24 vols. 

Dies Irae and Stabat Mater, bound to- 
gether. 

Dies Irae, alone, and Stabat Mater, 
alone. 

Dix's (John A.) Winter in Madeira. 

Speeches and Addresses. 2 vols. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



Dix's (Rev. M.) Lost Unity of the 
Christian World. 

Dr. Oldham at Greystones, and Ms 
Talk there. 

Doane's Works. 4 vols. 

Downing''s Kural Architecture. 

Dryden's Poems. 

Dunlap's Spirit History of Man. 

Dusseldorf Gallery, Gems from the. 

Dwight on the Study of Art. 

Ebony Idol (The). 

Ede's Management of Steel. 

Edith Vaughan's Victory. 

Egloffstein's Geology and Physical 
Geography of Mexico. 

Eichhorn'a German Grammar. 

EUiofs Fine Work on Birds. 7 parts, 
or in 1 vol. 

Ellsworth's Text-Book of Penman- 
ship. 

Ely's Journal. 

Enfield's Indian Corn ; its Value, Cul- 
ture, and Uses. 

Estvan's War Pictures. 

Evans' History of the Shakers. 

Evelyn's Life of Mrs. Godolphin. 

Everett's Mount Vernon Papers. 

Fables, Original and Selected. 

Farrar's History of Free Thought 

Faustus. 

Fay's Poems. 

Fenelon's Telemaque. 

The same, in 2 vols. 

Telemachus. 

Field's Bertha Percy. 

Field's (M.) City Architecture. 

Figuier's World before the Deluge. 

Fireside Library. 8 vols, in case. 

First Thoughts. 

Fiji and the Fijians. 

Flint's Physiology of Man. 

Florian's William Tell. 

Flower Pictures. 

Fontana's Italian Grammar. 

Foote's Africa and the American 
Flag. 

Foresti's Italian Extracts. 

Four Gospels (The). 

Franklin's Man's Cry and God's Gra- 
cious Answer. 

Frieze's Tenth and Twelfth Books of 
Quintllian. 

FuUerton's (Lady G.) Too Strange Not 
to be True. 

Funny Story Book. 

Garland's Life of Randolph. 
Gaskell's Life of Bronte. 2 vols. 

The same, cheaper edition, in 1 vol. 
George Ready. 
Gerard's French Readings. 
Gertrude's Philip Randolph. 
Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar. 
Ghostly Colloquies. 



Gibbes' Documentary History. 3 

vols. 
Gibbons' Banks of New York. 
Gilfillan's Literary Portraits. 
Gillespie on Land Surveying. 
Girardin on Dramatic Literature. 
Goadby's Text-Book of Physiology. 
Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris. 
Goldsmith's Essays. 

Vicar of Wakefield. 



Gosse's Evenings with the Microscope. 
Goulburn's Oflice of the Holy Com- 
munion. 

Idle Word. 

Manual of Confirmation. 

Sermons. 

Study of the Holy Scriptures. 

Thoughts on Personal Religion. 

Gould's (E. S.) Comedy. 
Gould's (W. M.) Zephyrs. 
Graham's English Synonymes. 
Grandmamma Easy's Toy Books. 
Grandmother's Library. 6 vols, in 

case. 
Grand's Spanish Arithmetic. 
Grant's Report on the Armies of the 

United States 1864-'65. 
Grauet's Portuguese Grammar. 
Grayson's Theory of Christianity. 
Greek Testament. 
Greene's (F. H.) Primary Botany. 

Class-Book of Botany. 

Greene's (G. W.) Companion to Ollen- 

dorfl; 

First Lessons in French. 

First Lessons in Italian. 

Middle Ages. 

Gregory's Mathematics. 
Griftin on the Gospel. 
Gritfith's Poems. 
Griswold's Republican Court. 

Sacred Poets. 

Guizot's (Madame) Tales. 

Guizot's (M.) Civilization in Europe. 

4 vols. 

School edition. 1 vol. 

New Edition, on tinted paper. 4 

vols. 
Gurowski's America and Europe. 
Russia as it is. 



Hadley's Greek Grammar. 
Hahn's Greek Testament. 
Hall's (B. H.) Eastern Vermont. 
Hall's (C. H.) Notes on the Gospels. 

2 vols. ^ 

Hall's (E. H.) Guide to the Great 

West. 
Halleck's Poems. 
Poems. Pocket size, blue and 

gold. 

Young America. 

Halleck's (H. W.) Military Science. 
Hamilton's (Sir Wm.) Philosophy. 
Hamilton's (A.) Writings. 6 vols. 



I ' Mr '33 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2004 

PreservationTechnologles 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



